United Parcel Service Inc.’s pilots approved a new contract giving them a 29 percent raise compounded over five years.

Members of the Independent Pilots Association passed the agreement with 91 percent voting in favor. The union, with more than 2,500 members, had been seeking a new pact since the end of 2011.

The five-year contract, which becomes effective Thursday, will pay UPS pilots wages at or near the top of the airline and air-freight industries. The pact includes an initial raise of 15 percent, followed by annual 3 percent increases. Top hourly pay for captains will increase to $338 an hour in 2020 from $262 today, according to a memo seen by Bloomberg that was temporarily available on the union’s website.

UPS and its pilots announced June 30 that they had reached a tentative agreement. That followed tense relations, with the pilots in April opening a strike center in Louisville, Kentucky, in case of a job action. Dozens of the shipper’s pilots in Cologne, Germany, refused to fly for a day in April to show support for striking German airport workers.