If they prop up the regional model with high pay in order to get through the retirement wave, they have a couple options to reel it back in when the time comes...

1. Wait until there's a pilot surplus (assuming that ever happens again), and then startup new regionals which attract young upwardly mobile time-builders with fast upgrade. The established regionals then have to accept concessions or lose their flying. Nothing new there, the regional death march road is littered with the corpses of Top Regionals which were put down.

2. Let inflation do it's work over time. Slower maybe, but gets there in the end.


That's if they bother to keep the regional industry intact, it's not even clear that's going to happen.