Jeremy Warner: That's just what we needed – a global pandemic

Outlook: Swine flu haunts an industry already rendered comatose by fuel costs and the economic downturn

For airlines, tour operators and hoteliers, history seems to be repeating itself. Pandemics always strike just at the point of maximum vulnerability for the travel industry.

Six years ago, it was severe acute respiratory syndrome that piled on the agony for airlines just as they were struggling to cope with an already poisonous cocktail of recession, war in Iraq and a sudden spike in fuel prices. Today it is swine flu that haunts an industry already rendered comatose by heavy fuel costs and the economic downturn.

Still, maybe this latest crisis will finally bring about the shake-out in this stubbornly resistant industry that has long been thought necessary by Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways. It's very difficult to kill off an airline, however insolvent it might appear. Just as they are pronounced dead, they rise up again. Perhaps pig flu will do the trick.