Perth Airport is back in business after a crippling refuelling issue saw 59 flights cancelled

Air in the pipes has been blamed for a refuelling outage at Perth Airport which took more than 12 hours to resolve, resulting in dozens of cancelled flights.

Perth Airport only announced a major makeover on Friday, hours before its fuel delivery system began to experience problems.

A fuel supply issue at Perth Airport has finally been resolved after a 12-hour outage resulted in scores of cancelled international and domestic flights.

The problem was due to low pressure in the system as a result of air in the pipes which meant fuel could not be supplied to aircraft in the manner required.

It was first noticed around 11pm on Friday local time, and was resolved just before midday on Saturday.

At least 59 international and domestic flights were cancelled, with Perth Airport advising airlines not to send planes to the city unless they had sufficient fuel to make the return flight.

In a statement issued just before 2pm on Saturday (AEST) a spokesman said refuelling operations had recommenced.

“Perth Airport has worked with external experts to resolve the issue. We will continue to monitor the situation closely in the event of any further issues,” said the spokesman.

“The issue impacted a number of outgoing and incoming flights with 59 international and domestic flights either cancelled or diverted.”

The spokesman said the airport would now work with airlines to help clear the backlog of flights “get passengers on their way”.

“We again thank passengers and our airline partners for their patience and understanding,” said the spokesman.

Perth Airport CEO Jason Waters said the problem took several hours to pinpoint, due to the time it took to bring in external expertise.

He explained that it appeared air had been sucked into the underground fuel distribution system which took time to bleed out, and allow fuel to replace the air.

“We have three tanks on site, three supply points and one common distribution system which is a big series of pipes under the ground,” Mr Waters said.

“What effectively happened, because it is going to be subject to a full engineering review and investigation, but we appear to have had air sucked into the distribution system. Even once we identified the fix, it then was a period of time to allow fuel to replace the air and for us to achieve back pressure and full flow.”

Some airlines worked around the problems at Perth Airport by landing first at Kalgoorlie, Karratha or Geraldton where extra fuel was taken on board before continuing onto Perth.

Qantas’ London-Perth flight was among those to make an unscheduled stop in Karratha in northern Western Australia.

The Boeing 787-9 was in Karratha for about 90 minutes before continuing onto Perth.

Mr Waters confirmed it would take time to clear the backlog of flights, but was hopeful airport operations would return to normal by Sunday.

“It’s clearly been a significant incident and something we treat with the utmost seriousness,” he said.

“We’re apologetic and sympathetic to impacted passengers.”

Angry passengers responded to a Facebook post by Perth Airport, complaining they had waited for hours without any information about why flights were not taking off.

Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia were among the airlines caught up in the mayhem with cancellations on a number of routes including to Bali, Melbourne and Sydney.

All apologised to customers for the disruption and said updates would be provided as the situation evolved.

Render of new Perth Airport terminal after a commercial agreement was reached with Qantas.

The drama came a day after Perth Airport and Qantas announced a landmark 12-year commercial deal that would see the airline move into a brand new terminal by 2031.

As part of a $5bn investment by Perth Airport, a new parallel runway would also be built plus new multistorey carparks, a hotel and road enhancements.

Qantas hailed the agreement as the biggest airport infrastructure deal involving the airline, and said it would create “a world class western hub” and allow a huge expansion of domestic and international services.

Originally published as Perth Airport is back in business after a crippling refuelling issue saw 59 flights cancelled