The government on Monday extended the cap on domestic airfares, which was earlier slated till April 30, to May 31.

The ministry of civil aviation also capped the maximum capacity utilised by airlines to 80 per cent of the summer schedule of 2020 till May-end.

The order comes days after the airlines had appealed to the government to reduce the capacity to 60 per cent as bookings had fallen because of the outbreak of the second wave of Covid-19.

Earlier this month, the airlines met ministry officials and sought financial help to keep running operations and “strict enforcement” of the lower fare limit fixed by the government to prevent predatory pricing by some.

The ministry officials did not explain why the airline capacity has been kept unchanged despite the request from airlines and an increase in the number of cases.

The summer schedule of 2021 is applicable between March 28 and October 30.

The directorate-general of civil aviation had in March allocated 18,843 departures per week for domestic airlines during the upcoming summer schedule 2021 from 108 airports across the country.