Renewed fears of a fresh outbreak of bird flu hit travel sector share prices in London on Friday.
British Airways and Iberia parent International Airlines Group dropped 17.4 to 234.9p while easyJet shares fell 70p to £10.27 despite better-than-expected half-year results.
Tui Travel was the blue-chip index’s third-biggest faller, losing 14.6 to 298.6p, and its competitor Thomas Cook dropped 7.9 to 105.8p.
Nervousness centred on a new strain of bird flu reported in eastern China.
An unnamed airline analyst told the Daily Telegraph on Saturday: “The sector is reacting to fears of a new bird flu pandemic in China, which would hurt air traffic.
“For now, investors are pricing in the worst, although if you look back four years ago, Chinese authorities did a good job dealing with it then, and the airline sector didn’t suffer much.”