Melbourne, Dec 8 (IANS): A Qantas international flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Western Australia Monday morning following the malfunctioning of the aircraft's air conditioning system.

The A380 passenger jet was travelling from Dubai to Sydney when its air conditioning failed around 700 km away from Western Australia, Xinhua reported.

The plane's captain immediately requested priority landing at Perth airport and lowered the plane from 12,000 metres to 2,700 metres, helping to stabilise the aircraft's internal air pressure.

After circling for an extended period off the coast of Australia in an effort to dump fuel and reach a safe landing weight, the plane touched down in Perth 90 minutes after reporting the initial problem.

Had the plane continued flying to Sydney, the entire cabin could have depressurised.

"Qantas Flight QF-2 travelling from Dubai to Sydney diverted to Perth due to a fault with the air conditioning. The fault occurred about one hour from Perth," a Qantas statement read Monday morning.

"As a precaution the captain descended the aircraft to 10,000 feet and requested a priority landing," it said.

"The aircraft landed safely and was inspected by engineers."

It added that as the crew reached their maximum duty limits before the problem could be fixed on the ground, passengers have been provided with overnight accommodation and would be sent on the next available service Monday to their destination.