Melbourne Airport says it’s too early to speculate on what caused a fire at Terminal 1 on Friday night, forcing passengers to evacuate and their flights to be rescheduled.

It took an hour to extinguish the fire, which broke out at 7pm and forced the evacuation of hundreds from the Qantas terminal.

The airport’s chief of aviation, Jim Parashos, spoke on Saturday morning, saying the terminal was operating as normal while investigations continued. Officers said it was not believed to be suspicious.

“There were naturally a lot of delays last night with disruptions due to the delays of outbound aircraft. Naturally, aircraft that had arrived safely into Melbourne needed to hold off until those departures vacated those gates. So we had anywhere between 60 to 180 minutes,” he said.

“There were 10 to 12 aircraft that had arrived into Melbourne, and passengers were held on the aircraft, until gates were available for them to exit safely.

“I think a lot of our customers were happy for us to put their safety first.”

A Qantas spokesperson said the airline had put on additional flights on Saturday morning to accommodate the affected passengers.

“The fire has been completely extinguished. The terminal – Terminal 1 only – was evacuated in response to the fire alarms,” a Melbourne Airport spokeswoman said at 8.40pm.

“Emergency services have cleared the terminal as safe to partially reopen and for operations to recommence. We are now supporting passengers as they return to the terminal and operations resume.

“We thank travellers for their patience and co-operation throughout the disruption.”

When fire crews arrived on the scene, they located and extinguished a small fire. “The scene was deemed under control at 7.39pm,” an FRV spokesperson said on Friday night.

Although the terminal began reopening for passengers, significant delays to Qantas flights were still expected.

Qantas flights that had landed in Melbourne following the incident were at one stage forced to line up on the tarmac, waiting to disembark.

Travellers took to social media to express their frustration at the time it took for the evacuation procedure to take place in the terminal.

“It took at least 10 minutes of the alarm going before anyone took action and evacuated guests,” one person wrote.

Our Breaking News Alert will notify you of significant breaking news when it happens. Get it here.