WASHINGTON — Senators have reached a compromise to dramatically increase the number of flight hours new commercial copilots need to get a license, though the figure falls short of what the group Families of Continental Flight 3407 was seeking.

Under a deal brokered by Sen. Charles E. Schumer and announced Friday, new co-pilots would have to have 800 hours of flight experience in specific, rigorous conditions, up from the current 250 hours of general experience.

The families who lost loved ones in the February 2009 plane crash in Clarence — in which pilot training and experience were key issues — have been pushing for a 1,500- hour requirement.

The compromise of 800 hours will be included in a bill to reauthorize funding for the Federal Aviation Administration, which the Senate is currently considering.

Both Schumer and the families lauded the compromise.

“At long last, the Senate will consider this legislation that will vastly improve the training for flight crews across the country and improve safety for all passengers,” said Schumer, D-N. Y. “The 3407 families have been saintlike in their patience and unwavering in their advocacy, but finally their wait is coming to an end.”

Schumer, like the families, had been pushing the 1,500-hour requirement. But sources close to the negotiations said he had to compromise because some senators — responding to the airlines that opposed that requirement — otherwise could have stood in the way of the legislation.

Susan Bourque, a leader of the families group, said the families would keep pushing for a higher requirement but that they were happy with the gains made in the Schumer compromise — especially those that prescribe that pilots get rigorous, specific experience.

The House has passed a separate aviation safety bill that includes the 1,500-hour requirement, so Bourque noted that the requirement still could be shifted upward.

“Every day for the last year, we’ve been fighting to get this legislation enacted into law, and today we’re getting very, very close,” she said. “Sen. Schumer has advocated tirelessly for our cause, and we thank him for all of his help in getting these improved flight experience requirements into the FAA reauthorization bill.”

Under the Schumer compromise, the FAA will have to set an 800-hour flight requirement for copilots by the end of next year. Some of that experience would have to be in multiple-pilot environments and adverse weather including icing, as well as in other specific conditions.

If the FAA fails to develop and implement those rules by the end

of next year, new co-pilots automatically would be required to have 1,500 hours of experience in specific, rigorous conditions.

In other words, the legislation prods the FAA — long noted for its delays in implementing new regulations — to act quickly.

The provision will be part of an FAA reauthorization bill that is expected to pass this month. How that measure will be merged with a House FAA reauthorization bill that passed last month and a separate House aviation bill passed in wake of the Clarence crash remained unclear.

Airline captains already are required to have 1,500 hours of experience. Members of the families group have been meeting with senators and their staffs for two weeks to push for the 1,500-hour requirement for new co-pilots as well.

And when the inability to get that requirement in the Senate legislation became clear, the families insisted on the tough, specific experience provisions that they backed all along, said Kevin Kuwik, a key member of the families group. Those provisions eventually were included.

The compromise would ensure that new pilots will not immediately start ferrying passengers around the country, he said.

“We don’t want to have people coming right out of flight schools and right to the commercial airlines,” Kuwik said. “They’re going to have to do something else first. Their entry- level job is not going to be as a commercial airline pilot.”