Australian flights hit by delays

Ansett said it was "the worst possible time"

Air travel in Australia is being disrupted for a second consecutive day at one of the busiest times of the year - this time by the grounding of six aircraft by one of the country's main airlines.

The Boeing 767s were taken out of service for unspecified safety checks.

The airline, Ansett Australia, gave no reason for the mechanical checks, which are disrupting the Christmas travel plans of thousands of passengers.

The problems with Ansett flights came a day after a fire temporarily closed Australia's main airport at Sydney, causing severe delays during the Friday afternoon peak period.

The fire in a main computer of the control tower was minor but it closed the airport for almost half an hour, forced the cancellation of a few flights, and caused delays for four hours.

'Extra aircraft'

Thousands of passengers are likely to be delayed by the latest problem.

"This has come at the worst possible time for us, the staff are very, very busy but it's not something which is going to be fixed today," said Ansett spokesman Geoff Lynch.

He said alternative arrangements were being made for passengers.

"There are some passengers on a Hong Kong flight that are going to be affected tonight," he said. "We are still working on a solution for a flight to Bali out of Sydney as well, but passengers on international flights are hoping to get away at some stage today as well."

The airline, a subsidiary of Air New Zealand, said it would bring in extra aircraft and operate some services outside normal schedules to minimise the disruptions for Christmas travellers.

"This decision has been taken in response to an engineering directive to carry out a precautionary inspection of several areas of the aircraft," Ansett said in a statement.

"It is not yet known when all six aircraft will be back in operation but Ansett will be working to achieve that as quickly as possible," it said.

Kendall Airlines, a small regional airline, later offered some of its fleet to help Ansett move its passengers.

Scare

Earlier, a Qantas BAE 146 jet suffered a safety scare when fuel started leaking.

The plane, carrying 46 passengers, was on its way from Adelaide to Canberra when passengers reported to the flight crew what they thought was smoke near the fuselage around 1800 (0700 GMT).

A Qantas spokeswoman said the pilot immediately turned back to Adelaide and landed within 15 minutes of take-off. It was not an emergency landing, she said.

"The engineers had an initial look at the plane and decided, as a safety precaution, to keep the plane on the ground," she said.

Airservices Australia spokesman Richard Dudley said an investigation was underway to find out the cause of the leak.