A Tiger Airways flight was forced to land just after take-off at Tullamarine airport this morning when the pilot could not retract the planes landing gear.

The 100 passengers on board the Brisbane bound Airbus A320 flight were delayed about two-and-a-half hours before being transferred to another aircraft.

No-one was injured.

Engineers were assessing the aircraft at the centre of the incident, which was expected to be back in the air tomorrow.

The drama comes just months after the struggling budget carrier returned to Australian skies after being grounded for six weeks over "serious" safety concerns.

Tiger spokeswoman Vanessa Regan said a "technical fault" forced the pilot to land at Melbourne Airport soon after take-off.

She denied the incident was an emergency landing, but said it was a standard operating procedure.

"The technical fault which caused this mornings incident had redundancy back-up systems available," she said.

"Standard operating procedure was correctly followed and an uneventful landing was executed at Melbourne Airport."

In an Australian first, the nations civil aviation watchdog grounded Tiger in July after what it described as "serious" safety concerns.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) moved to suspend the budget airline's services after a Tiger passenger jet flew into Avalon Airport, below the lowest safe altitude.

It was the second time in a month such an incident had occurred.

Tiger was also officially put on notice earlier last year over its pilot training and maintenance procedures.

The technical mishap is a blow for the budget airline, which is struggling to rebuild its battered reputation among travellers and trying to recoup losses of more than AU$20 million following last year's grounding.