Qantas (QF, Sydney Kingsford Smith) CEO Alan Joyce has lashed out at Canberra airport for allegedly blocking the carrier's diverted aircraft from taking-off again without the physical payment of airport fees, ABC has reported.

"I've never seen it in my nearly 30 years in the aviation industry where a pilot's been told to pass over a credit card of AUD18,000 dollars (USD13,500) otherwise the aircraft can't go. Maybe the airport should be called the Canberra Pirates, because you wouldn't have this in Somalia," CEO Alan Joyce has said.

The airport's Managing Director, Stephen Byron, has confirmed that a vehicle was parked behind a Qantas jet to prevent it from leaving. However, he said that the incident lasted only eight minutes and was mostly caused by security concerns.

"Qantas had landed two B747-400s unannounced and put other aircraft in danger, five weeks before this incident. This was an incident where Qantas had to be held to account in terms of safety and putting other aircraft at risk. There was no payment made at all, there was no dispute about payment," Byron has underlined.

The airport representative has argued that by diverting its international services, operated with large widebody aircraft, to Canberra without proper planning and authorisation, Qantas is jeopardising the airport's regular operations as well as potentially planned diversions.

According to the ch-aviation capacity module, Qantas operates 226 scheduled services out of Canberra. The flag carrier is the market leader at the Australian capital, having a 54.8% market share by weekly seats.