Piedmont and Envoy Air Raise Pilots’ Pay as Travel Demand Surges |

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Pilots at two regional airlines owned by

are getting a sizable pay raise for at least the next two years as the carriers struggle to hold on to pilots amid an industrywide hiring spree.

Piedmont Airlines and Envoy Air will boost pilot pay by an additional 50% through the end of August 2024, on top of longer-term pay increases, as airlines try to rebuild their ranks after encouraging thousands of pilots to retire at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Altogether, newly hired first officers will start out earning $90 an hour through the summer of 2024. Newly hired captains will start at roughly $146 an hour at both carriers during that period, or more depending on experience.

Before the new pay agreement, Piedmont first-officer pay started at $51 an hour and captain pay started at $78 an hour. At Envoy, the raises amount to a 13% pay increase and a 60% increase in pay for the next two years, said Capt.

Ric Wilson,

the airline’s vice president of flight operations.

The raises put pay at Piedmont and Envoy well ahead of other regional airlines, industry officials said, and the carriers said they are hoping that they will be better able to compete with budget airlines and cargo carriers that have been poaching their pilots in recent months. Both airlines said the extra 50% boost could be extended.

“We’ve definitely put what we believe is an aggressive package,” said Piedmont Chief Executive

Eric Morgan.

“We’ve had challenges before, but this level of demand [for pilots] is not something we’ve seen.”

Competition for pilots has been fierce as travel demand has rebounded. Major U.S. carriers are on track to hire more than 10,000 pilots this year, according to projections from FAPA.aero, a pilot advisory firm. That would make 2022 the busiest year on record for pilot hiring by a wide margin—topping the roughly 5,400 pilots hired last year.

Regional airlines have been one-upping each other with higher and higher signing bonuses, but executives at Piedmont and Envoy said that hasn’t been enough to stem the outflow. Envoy is losing 80 pilots a month, compared with more typical attrition of 30 a month, Mr. Wilson said.

Regional carriers are an important link in the U.S. aviation system. Large airlines outsource a significant portion of their flying to these smaller partners to save on costs, and regional airlines operate more than 40% of domestic flights, according to the Regional Airline Association.

They also operate as a feeder system for pilots, who often begin their careers at regional carriers and eventually move up to a larger airline.

That system has been strained in recent months, executives have said, after major carriers found themselves in a lurch. They had encouraged thousands of pilots to retire early to save money at the height of the pandemic. When travel demand started to rebound, they said, they were caught flat-footed.

American has 100 regional aircraft that it can’t fly because of the lack of regional pilots, the company said. Smaller cities have been losing service as regional carriers have made cutbacks to account for the staffing pinch.

As travel rebounds from the pandemic, carriers big and small are scrambling to hire pilots. But some airline executives say a 2013 regulation is standing in the way, and they want the government to revisit the so-called 1,500-hour rule. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday explains. Photo: David Fang for WSJ

The Air Line Pilots Association, a union that represents pilots at both airlines, said regional airlines have “tried to skimp and save” when it comes to pilot pay, and described the pay agreements announced last week as “an acknowledgment that this approach of shortchanging front-line workers is not working.”

Airlines and lawmakers have been discussing other ways to address pilot constraints. Some lawmakers are considering introducing legislation to raise the mandatory retirement age for pilots. Republic Airways Inc., another regional carrier, has asked the Federal Aviation Administration to allow pilots who go through a special program at the airline’s training academy to begin flying on a restricted license with 750 hours of flight time. Some carriers have been looking to bring pilots to the U.S. from Australia on special visas.

Kit Darby,

a consultant on pilot hiring trends, said pay is only part of the issue. A 2013 rule requiring pilots to have 1,500 hours of experience before they can be hired at most commercial airlines has made it more time-consuming and expensive to become a pilot, he said.

“Money is part of a longer-term solution, but it will take years to produce more pilots from scratch,” he said.

One of the biggest challenges has been hanging on to more experienced aviators, airlines said. Captains, who are required to have an additional 1,000 hours of flying under their belts, have become a scarce resource. Even as carriers have been able to bring on new first officers, they often don’t have enough captains to pair them with.

At Envoy, executives didn’t anticipate that some of the airline’s most experienced aviators would be lured away by budget airlines and cargo carriers, rather than sticking around until they could be hired by a legacy airline such as American, Mr. Wilson said.

Now Envoy is hoping to recruit some of these more experienced pilots from rivals. Under the new pay agreements, Mr. Wilson said, a captain coming over from another airline could be in line to earn $200,000 a year initially.

“These bonuses should help us retain and attract those critical captain positions to keep all our airplanes flying,” he said.

Write to Alison Sider at alison.sider@wsj.com