Owners whose vehicles were accidently covered in a mystery paint while parked at the Airport on Sunday will be compensated by the contractor that was carrying out renovations at the site.

Yesterday BCM McAlpine president Alan Burland said the firm would be paying up for the mishap.

About 20 cars were covered in the fine white spray which is thought to have blown a distance of up to 300 yards across the site from the baggage area -- where workers were painting the ceiling.

"Fourteen people have come in today and a number of those cars had a very fine spray on them,'' Mr. Burland said.

"We have had these people fill out a form giving their name and address and whereabouts exactly their cars were parked. A number of these people have gone and got quotes from auto body repair people.

"We have said that by Wednesday or Thursday we will give them a satisfactory solution.

"But we will be getting the paint analysed because we want to make sure that it came from us. The paint can be scraped off quite easily -- it's not a difficult job.

"We don't know if there are any other people who haven't come forward yet but if they haven't I would ask them to get in touch as soon as possible.'' Airport Operations general manager, Jack Gordon, said it appeared that a fine vapour of paint had blown across the building during the operations in Sunday's high winds.

He said it was unfortunate, but anybody whose car had been affected would be dealt with by BCM McAlpine, if they came forward.