New bipartisan legislation would let the Air Force offer more aviators bigger bonuses—plus other incentives, including a new “career intermission” program—to remain in the service.
Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) spearheaded a legislative package, including two bills designed to retain Air Force aviators: the Retention Enhancements for Tactical Aircrew Initiative, or RETAIN, and and the Fighter Aircrew Career Flexibility Act.
The RETAIN bill focuses on aviation incentive pay and the Rated Officer Retention Demonstration program. It would:
- Mandate the maximum $1,500 per month in aviation incentive pay aviators with more than eight years of experience
- Expand eligibility for the career flexibility demonstration to include aviators with less than a year left on their contract and reduce the minimum commitment participants must agree to from four years to one
- Increase the maximum cash bonus for demo participants from $50,000 to $100,000
- Add non-financial incentives, such as the ability to “perform a staff assignment that does not require flying remotely” or transferring to a “non-combat aviation service position,” to the program
The bill would also extend the demonstration by three years, keeping it operating through 2031.
The Air Force has been striving to improve aviator retention for years. It is now trying to fix the program from both ends, increasing pilot training throughput and now retaining more trained aviators, as well.
Budget documents released this week note that aircraft personnel levels are projected to decline slightly in 2026, to 88.5 percent compared to 91.9 percent in 2025. The shortfall is particularly acute for combat aviators, with the bomber and fighter communities both estimated to be below 70 percent in 2027.
“While individual manning numbers for each community are an important metric, the overall pilot manning level must be considered as a certain number of pilot billets are interchangeable,” the document states. “Overall manning drops substantially year-over-year.”
The new budget projects about 6,550 aviators will receive bonuses in 2027, up slightly from 6,333 this fiscal year, but well short of 2026 projections, which had estimated 10,000 aviator bonuses.
Similarly, the Air Force is estimating a small increase in the number of officers who receive Aviation Incentive Pay in fiscal 2027, leading to an increase in the budget from $172 million to $184 million.
Matt Donovan, former Undersecretary and Acting Secretary of the Air Force and F-15 pilot, said money alone won’t be enough to close the shortfalls.
“You can pay people any amount of money, but flyers want to fly,” Donovan told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “And from what I understand … they’re getting about half the number of stories and half the number of hours that they were getting even 10, 15 years ago. So if flyers aren’t flying, they’re going to go someplace where they can fly, especially the younger guys, the captains and majors.”
Sabbaticals?
Air Force officials counter that retention is not just about flying more, but rather can be a family matter.
That’s the idea behind Budd’s and Shaheen’s second bill. Cosponsored by Sens. Angus King (I-Maine), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), and Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the measure seeks to address the need for family time by altering the rules to allow for career “intermissions.”
The bill would let Airmen who have completed Undergraduate Pilot Training or Undergraduate Navigator Training and are not tasked for a deployment to request a break from Active-Duty for four to 12 months. During this “intermission” period, participating aviators would be placed in the Individual Ready Reserve—meaning that in time of war they could be recalled—draw a fractional salary and retain access to some benefits.
In exchange, they would incur two months of additional service commitment for every month they took off. A wing commander would have to approve the leave.
The bill prohibits protects participants from suffering any ill effects as a result of their break.
All the service branches allow a little-known Career Intermission Program of from one to three years, but over the course of such a lengthy layoff, flying skills erode, and getting back to currency is much harder.
The proposed shorter-term demonstration would remain in effect for five years, the bill states, long enough to determine if it achieves the desired effect: “reduce early separations and preserve experienced fighter aircrew … for air staff positions and leadership roles in the active component.”
Donovan was skeptical unless changes are also made to the Air Force’s rated officer management system.
“These sort of schemes have been tried before,” he said. “They don’t work very well because … the rated management system isn’t set up for people to just decide where they want to go and go do it.”