That’s — you know what, for Kirsten and I, the load and yield trade-off is what keeps us up at night. It is a critical question. And I think really what we wrestle with on a daily basis is how much do we rely on the close-in both yields and volume. And to date, we’ve seen them be a little weaker versus — certainly versus 2019. So I think as we continue to watch this, but I think when you go back to 2019, unit revenues were up a couple of points. Capacity was up a couple of points. It was a pretty stable nonexciting year per se, but I think the volatility that we’ve got going on and looking at how we manage these ebbs and flows is key. So I think as we go closer into summer and we are a high leisure carrier, and that’s where we — Q2 and specialty 3 is where we really do well.
We’re going to have to really wrestle with that question.Operator And your next question will come from Jamie Baker with JPMorgan.Jamie Baker Well, speaking of return to office mandates, here I am. So it’s typically better to take local yields over connecting yields, just sort of a broader industry comment. But in light of this surging international demand dynamic right now year-on-year, is Alaska at a point where prioritizing fee to long-haul oneworld flights might make more economic sense? Or would that be sort of overstating the portion of the international Terry, that you take. I mean are you still better off chasing local yields in other words?Andrew Harrison Jamie, it’s a question that we’re actually focused on right now. I will — and I think we shared this on previous calls, but the traffic and the pro rates and the connecting and even the local from American is actually better than our system average.
And so this is highly valuable traffic, especially with the surge in international. We have hired some international pricing folks as well. So as an RM team, we’re getting more and more focus on this. As we shared at the highest level, 8% to 10% of all revenue coming from partners, International is obviously a subset of that, the domestic is obviously a much higher portion. But I do think that there is opportunity on certain markets and connecting markets to focus more on this area.Jamie Baker Okay. Interesting. And then second, when I think back to the start of COVID, One of the things that I wasn’t initially thinking about or anticipating was the industry brain drain that has taken place. And maybe brain drain isn’t the best term. I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense, but gyrations in the C-suite, whatever you want to call it.
As we think about your bench but also the broader industry, and I apologize I’m just kind of saying it out loud here, but is this a topic that you’re team gives much consideration to internally? And if it’s a super question, just say so I’m sure my competitors will be thrilled.Benito Minicucci No, Jamie, I would never say that’s the dumb question. No, actually, it’s a topic we talk about at the Board. As I look around the table here at my executives and my officers, we’ve had very — we were fortunate, we’ve had very little turnover at the executive level at Alaska. But I think what you’re talking about is an important topic is, how do you create a bench? How do you create succession? And it’s something we’re focused on and working on as we speak.
So your question is valid. Again, short term, we’re fortunate here. We haven’t had that brain drain, but it’s something to be aware of in the next 3 to 5 years.Operator Our next question will come from Stephen Trent with Citigroup.Stephen Trent I was just curious what your thoughts are on U.S. infrastructure. So I know you guys and your competitors have done a lot of good work to make — to ensure, for example, a smoother summer travel period. What are you seeing on the government side in terms of appropriately staffed TSA traffic control infrastructure investment? It looks like the House of rep and the White House can seem to agree on budget. So I’m wondering how you’re seeing all that on a high level.Benito Minicucci Stephen, thanks for your question.
So maybe the best way I can contrast it is back to 2019. So when I look at the capacity of the airline industry vis-a-vis today, it’s roughly the same. So we have roughly the same amount of capacity than we did in 2019. I think the pinch point is air traffic controllers. As you see some of the actions that need to be taken in New York, I think in Florida, I think we’ve seen some in California and our L.A. market. So I think staffing on the federal side is the key pinch point. And again, we’re talking with our government counterparties and making sure that they hire and train appropriately. Infrastructure is another one. I think that airlines and government have to work on together to make sure the airspace is efficient. There’s a lot of things that we can do in terms of technology to facilitate that.
And I think that going forward, like I say, we’re back to 2019 levels where we were already constrained. But going forward, I think we really need a solid plan to really facilitate this next generation of aerospace management.Operator And we’ll move next to Mike Linenberg with Deutsche Bank.Mike Linenberg Andrew, your this objective about sort of reducing the seasonality of the company in the March quarter or at least finding a way to get to profitability. It seems like no management team at Alaska has really ever been able to crack the code in that regard. I think there’s been like maybe a year here or there where we’ve seen profitability, but it was usually sort of peak. I guess absent, I don’t know, building a hub in [indiscernible], is it network?
Is it just scaling back frequency in some of these corporate markets and maybe running airplanes — more airplanes through maintenance, maybe your utilization goes down, but that’s better? Or is it more on the cost side, just moving to a single fleet type and you get a nice tailwind there. I mean I’m just trying to figure out what you’re thinking about. It’s interesting.Benito Minicucci Mike, it’s Ben. It’s a great question. So if you look at for us, March was very profitable. We almost hit a double-digit pretax margin. It was January and February that were the issues. So for us, like I got to be honest, I just set the mandate for my team and say, look, leaders change outcomes. We don’t like the outcome in January and February, and we don’t know the exact answer, Mike, to be honest.
But the mandate has been given to the commercial team to say, look, there are things that we know if we dissect the data, airplanes can be moved. We can do things with our network, manage capacity. But you have to do that not only right before the quarter, you got to start thinking about it 9 months before, which is why we’re setting the goal now. So Andrew needs to think about what he does in the second and third quarter as he builds capacity so you can manage the first quarter of next year. And so a lot of work to do, Mike. And hopefully, we can show that at least we’ve closed the gap to next year as we work on this thing. And to your point, it’s not been consistently done, but at Alaska. We just like taking big audacious challenges. Let’s change the narrative.Mike Linenberg I know, very good.
Now just one more. On just watching American sort of shift on their distribution and I’m sure you’ve been following the reports closely where it does look like that they’re now focusing on their larger corporate accounts. And given that you guys have gotten closer and as part of the partnership, you, obviously, want to grow and build on that and then obviously bring in more corporate travel. Does that have an impact on you? And I guess, specifically, I’m saying where American has said that they’re going to sort of back away at some of the smaller accounts, corporate accounts that maybe do less than $1.5 million or $2 million of sales. And I know that may be an area that you play in. I mean, obviously, you have big corporates that you do business with, but when I think about Alaska historically, I mean given your network in size prior to oneworld prior to the American partnership, you probably had a disproportionate amount of your corporates were probably maybe small, medium enterprises.
So I’m just curious if there’s any sort of impact there, you’re probably watching that closely. Any comments that you can make about that shift on American on the distribution and sales side.Andrew Harrison Yes. I think obviously, it’s well documented, some of the significant changes that American are doing specifically around NDC and the impact with GDS and all the rest of it. I think for us, we obviously have good and a lot of joint contracting with American and our larger corporates, and they’ve been working extremely well. One of Brett Catlin’s priority on objectives is I think we under-index where we should in the small and medium enterprise. So I think it’s not something we’ve focused on as much as we should. So again, if anything, given our West Coast footprint, we’re going to be focusing a lot more on that.
As it relates to NDC, we are well into our journey as well and more to come on that will be sort of fully up and running next year with OTAs and all that connected. And I think there’s a good cost story there and there’s a good product story there and more to come.Operator We’ll hear next from Scott Group with Wolfe Research.Scott Group I want to just go back to the chart on the monthly RASM. So I think you said 63% of revenue is booked for the quarter. How much of June is booked at this point because there’s obviously a big further step-up assumed in June? And how do I think about that further acceleration in June relative to some of your comments about RASM following fuel prices?Andrew Harrison Yes. So I think June, I’m going to just — even on our load factor, I think we still got a good 45-plus points to go.
So to your point, Scott, it is the lowest book of this month, but I’ll also say it is one of the strongest and highest demand as we go into summer there. So I think that’s what the team is squarely focused on right now. And to my earlier comments, we need to get right, the mix between bookings further out and what we’re going to allow to come closer in.Scott Group Okay. And then, Shane, I just want to clarify is, you’re still assuming 8% to 10% revenue growth for the year. And then the fuel hedges — I know I’ve asked this before, but I’ll ask it, doesn’t feel like they’re helping. Any thoughts about either changing how we hedge or just getting rid of hedges?Nathaniel Pieper Scott, it’s Nat. Consistent with the Alaska, you know, we are — we play it for the long run.
And hedging costs in the quarter was about $12 million. Long term, it was $170 million to the good last year. So we didn’t get a lot of questions last year about changing the hedge program as you might expect. Since we’ve had this program specifically in place since 2015, buying calls 20% out of the money, 18 months in advance. The program has been positive for us. It’s all about [indiscernible] volatility and really trying to just put a box around it. So one quarter doesn’t cause this necessarily to change a multiyear process. But I think we’re going to be intelligent about it and look at it over the long run. And if there are smart changes to be made, we’ll make them.Scott Group And then the 8% to 10% revenue, is that still the right number?Shane Tackett Yes.
