A disaster recovery team has been established at a Stansted Airport building where 14 fire crews fought a weekend blaze.

Intense heat and smoke gripped the Alpha Flight Services building in Long Border Road on Sunday, but yesterday staff were supplying low-cost airlines with their usual snack and drinks trolleys.

Company spokesman Avril Appleyard said the team will assess what they have to deal with so the unit can get back to normal working as soon as possible.

She said: "There's a lot of smoke damage throughout the whole unit but our contingency plans went well.

"The team were able to deep clean the crew food preparation kitchen, which was not badly affected, and they were able to maintain that service."

But Mrs Appleyard said the rest of the unit will take another couple of months to get back to normality, and in the meantime the company's Luton and Birmingham units were providing meals for passengers on about eight flights a day.

Investigations are still taking place but the probable cause of the fire is an industrial washer drier.

Published Wednesday, September 1, 2004

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