As long as people are willing to work at the current pay rates, what incentive do airlines have to pay any more? Employee compensation is generally based on the laws of supply and demand---the more in-demand a skill is, and the less people there are able to provide it, the higher the wages will be. The goal of most corporations is to pay employees just enough to keep them from quitting. As long as there are qualified people out there with a dream of flying for the airlines, it would be stupid (from the CEOs point-of-view) to grant any significant pay raises. I personally think regional FOs should start off around 25-30K, and then go up to about 40K for year two, but that would cut into executive bonuses and no airline executive would go for that unless there were first a serious reduction in the number of applicants. Just my two cents' worth.