SYDNEY The travel plans of 45,000 Australians were thrown into chaos by the sudden collapse on Friday of the country's second largest airline, Ansett, with huge debts and job losses.

Thousands of angry passengers crowded airport ticketing counters of Qantas and Virgin, trying to book alternative flights, but the rival carriers were unable to accommodate all of the stranded passengers, AFP reported.

More than 17,000 Ansett employees woke to find they had lost their jobs in the 65-year-old airline just 15 months after it was bought out by air New Zealand. Another 40,000 jobs in downstream industry are also under threat, the unions say.

Ansett was grounded suddenly and without warning at 2.00 a.m. Friday after administrators Price Water House Coopers declared they had run out of cash to continue.

The bankrupt carrier was placed in voluntary administration this week to stem the financial hemorrhaging of air N.Z. after it conceded Ansett was losing 1.3 million dollars (670,000 U.S.) a day.

Thousands of Ansett workers, owed more than 400 million dollars in wages and entitlements, marched on city centers across Australia in protest rallies to urge Canberra to guarantee the entitlements.

At one stage hundreds of airline baggage handlers, refuellers and caterers at Sydney and Melbourne Airport walked off the job in a protest strike that caused delays to some international flights. Air New Zealand suspended flights from New Zealand to Australia.

Four regional airlines controlled by Ansett have also collapsed, causing a transport crisis for numerous regional and isolated outback centers where they provided the only airline services.

Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister John Anderson said the government had done everything it could to save Ansett, but it would have cost 170 million dollars (88 million U.S.) to keep it flying until just Saturday night.

He deflected criticism of Canberra's handling of the crisis, blaming the collapse of "an Australian icon" on air N.Z. incompetence.

"Ansett's assets will now be put up for sale but the company itself has been completely and comprehensively driven into the ground by ... air N.Z.," Anderson said. "It is just mindboggling bad and it just can't be resurrected in its current form."

Among the stranded passengers was New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, on her way home from Europe, who found her air N.Z. flight from Melbourne blockaded by Ansett workers furious with the New Zealand carrier.

She had to be lifted out four hours late on a police helicopter to a smaller nearby airport to connect with an air force jet to get her back to Wellington.

Flight attendant Carelle Cumming telephoned talkback radio to complain tearfully that she had given Ansett loyal service for 25 years only to find herself out of a job without even wages.

"We have worked for two weeks without pay," she told ABC radio. "The pilots were due to be paid today, but they've shut down because they don't want to pay the pilots."

Air N.Z., which already owned half of Ansett, acquired the other half from news corp ltd. in June 2000.

New corp dismissed suggestions Friday that the former owners were responsible for the Ansett crash, saying it had "sold a business in very good shape run by a first class management team.

"It won't wash to apportion blame to previous owners when it is clear the problems confronting Ansett arose during air N.Z.'s time at the helm."

Opposition leader Kim Beazley a rally of Ansett workers in Sydney labor would support any government action to underpin the workers entitlements.

"If you go to fight air New Zealand on this, which is absolutely essential, we will support you," he said. "They are responsible, they are the ones who took on-board Ansett.

"I cannot believe that an operation which has 40 to 50 percent of market share in this country could be in such a bad position."