After operating for nine years, Kingfisher Airlines today lost its licence to fly with aviation regulator DGCA suspending it with immediate effect, capping three weeks of lockout in the beleaguered carrier.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) suspended the Scheduled Operator Permit (SOP) of Kingfisher Airlines following its failure to come up with a viable plan of financial and operational revival.

Noting that the airline had not addressed "any of the issues" raised in its show-cause notice of October 5 and meetings with top officials, the DGCA suspended its SOP "till such time the Kingfisher Airlines submits a concrete and reliable revival plan ensuring safe, reliable, efficient and sustainable Scheduled Air Transport Services to the satisfaction of DGCA."

"They were asked to submit their operational preparedness plan for resumption of flight operations. Instead, they have sought more time to file a reply to the show cause notice not indicating any time frame for submitting the detailed response," an official spokesperson said, adding that this request was rejected.

"The DGCA has suspended the flying licence of Kingfisher Airline because of safety reasons," Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh told reporters here.

Singh said the planes were not being maintained and serviced by their engineers who were on strike. "Safety can't be compromised."

Suspension of flying licence implies an immediate halt to all flying operations, which in any case have been grounded since October one when the lockout was declared. It also entails stopping of all ticket bookings on the entire network as well as through travel agents, DGCA officials said.

Kingfisher was issued an airline licence on August 26, 2003. It was actually in the name of Air Deccan which was bought over by the liquor baron Vijay Mallya-owned carrier. The permit is valid till December 31 this year.

Kingfisher has been saddled with a loss of Rs 8,000 crore and a debt burden of another over Rs 7,524 crore, a large part of which has not been serviced since January. It currently has only 10 operational aircraft compared to 66 a year ago.

Elaborating on the grounds for suspension of the licence, the DGCA order said Kingfisher had "in fact, no concrete revival plan for resumption of flight operations at this juncture which shows that they are unable to resume their scheduled air transport service."

The airline, in a letter to DGCA yesterday, had also stated that the employees unrest "is not in their control which shows their ineffectiveness and inability to restart their airline in order to provide safe, reliable and sustainable scheduled air transport service," the order said.

Civil Aviation Ministry officials said the government did not want a situation where the airline, which was on cash-and -carry mode for almost all service providers, resumed operations and then kept flying in fits and starts, as has been happening since last year-end.

Asked about allowing the airline to resume its services, the Minister said "they can always come back. It can't resume operations until the DGCA is satisfied and they should have concrete plans regarding safety of operations."

Singh also said the airline management would also have to make sure that the employees were not disgruntled.

The airline would have to approach DGCA when they are ready to resume operations. The regulator then would have to satisfy itself that the airline was ready to fly. It will ascertain the preparedness of its protesting staff to operate flights, the airline's capacity to pay for the operations and all safety measures, before giving a go-ahead.

Kingfisher employees are slated to meet the management in Mumbai on Monday over salary payment and other issues.

Airline engineers, who started the present crisis by going on strike from September 29 and refusing to certify planes, said unless Kingfisher offers them at least four months' salary and that too before Diwali on November 12, they would not resume work.