In a statement today, the airline said guests on board the flight will be transferred to the next available flight or the recovery flight, which is scheduled to depart Perth at 8.30 tonight.
“The safety of our guests is our utmost priority,” it added.
“Passengers were attended to by our ground staff upon landing and (we are) providing all necessary assistance.”
It said the flight D7237, bound for Kuala Lumpur from Perth today at 6.50am local time, had 359 passengers on board.
It returned to Perth airport shortly after take-off due to a “technical issue”.
The flight landed safely in Perth airport at 10am.
Earlier, AFP quoted one of the passengers as saying the plane was “shaking like a washing machine”.
It said the Airbus A330 experienced problems about 90 minutes into the journey.
“The pilot identified technical issues, turned around and returned,” an airport spokesman told AFP, adding that emergency crews were put on standby but not needed.
The news agency noted that this was the second scare involving an Airbus A330 in Australia this month, with a China Eastern plane making an emergency landing in Sydney after a huge hole appeared in one of its engine casings.
Terrified passengers on that flight described a very loud noise soon after it left Sydney for Shanghai. No one was hurt.
A passenger on today’s flight, Brenton Atkinson, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation one of the engines was really shaking on the wing.
“Once we landed, we realised one of the blades had actually come off the turbine.”
The West Australian newspaper said passengers near the left engine were asked to tell cabin crew if they saw any problems with the left engine.
Passengers were reminded of safety procedures and they practised the brace position for landing during the journey back to Perth.
Another passenger said the pilot warned them the return journey would be slower because they had the power of only one engine and to limit the shuddering.
After the plane landed safely, everyone on board applauded the pilots.
“The captain did a very good job, he was reassuring and then we landed safely,” one man said.
Once they landed, they were told a blade had sheared off the left engine.
AirAsia plane ‘shaking like washing machine’ returns to Australia