It was standing room only at Canberra Airport terminals for much of the day as passengers waited up to six hours for seats in aircraft that ran up to four hours late.

One man, rather disgruntled after sitting on the floor for three hours, said: "what irks me is, the blokes who a causing all the trouble are still on full pay".

Airline staff said that passengers were mostly polite and understanding during the delays.

TAA and Ansett staff said that flights ran "close to schedule" early on, but got further and further behind through the day.

The problem was compounded by the closure of Melbourne Airport during the afternoon when a thunderstorm there lasted nearly and hour, causing delays of up to six hours.

Airlines had aircrafts on the ground for up to three hours waiting to be allocated timeslots for landing at their destinations. Meanwhile, 400 people were crammed into the terminal and spilled out to the cooler comfort of the grassed areas around the carparks.

Another article on the front page reported Sydney Airport could was also likely to close due to the strike.

"Only about 95,000 flew with the domestic airlines in the three traditionally heaviest days before Christmas compared with the more than 125,000 the airlines had expected," the article read.

"But even the smaller number was moved only with difficulty."

See more at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/13922564