Generally, Regional pay is driven by supply and demand. Pay is just high enough to fill the seats. Right now, regional pay is a little low at some operators (thus attrition is exceeding hiring), and a little high at others like the AA wholly owned (hiring exceeding attrition).

Major airline pay however is artificially higher than it would be based on just supply/demand. That’s why HR has thousands of resumes, and they don’t have issues filling classes. If major airline pay were suddenly cut 20%, they would still have no issue filling classes.