South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA)

About the South African Civil Aviation Authority

The South African Civil Aviation Authority, known as the SACAA, is the public body that regulates civil aviation in South Africa. It was set up under the Civil Aviation Act of 2009, and it oversees safety and security in the country's skies. Its work includes licensing pilots and aircraft maintenance engineers, and it inspects airlines, airports and aircraft.

The regulator employs inspectors, engineers, lawyers, auditors, information technology staff and many others. It also helps to grow the pool of skilled people who work in aviation.

How the SACAA supports students

The SACAA states on its careers page that it offers opportunities to future aviators in different areas. It lists current external bursaries and scholarships on a separate recruitment portal, and it also mentions internal bursaries for its own staff as a way to build leadership skills.

The careers page does not describe the fields, amounts or conditions of the external bursaries, so those details sit in each individual advert on the portal. You can read what we found on our SACAA Bursary page.

Because the fields differ from year to year, look at each advert closely. A bursary for an aviation-related qualification will have different rules from one for a business or technical degree.

What to know before applying

The SACAA recruitment portal loads its adverts through scripts, so we could not read the list of current bursaries when we researched this profile. We therefore cannot tell you which bursaries are open today, or what they pay for.

What the careers page does state is a contact address for bursary queries, which is BursaryApplications@caa.co.za. Use it if the portal does not load for you or if an advert is unclear.

Apply only through the SACAA's own portal and never pay anyone to submit an application for you. Public bodies do not charge for bursary applications, and fake adverts do circulate on social media.

When you open an advert, read the closing date first, then the list of fields, the academic requirements and the documents. Make sure your qualification matches before you spend time on the form. Keep copies of everything that you submit, and keep your phone and email active, because the authority will contact shortlisted candidates.

Aviation is a field in which safety rules matter. If you are interested in a career with the regulator, read about how it licenses pilots and engineers, and think about which part of its work suits you. That preparation will make your motivation more convincing than a general statement of interest in aeroplanes.