“China Southern Airlines Co. (1055) plunged the most in more than a year in Hong Kong trading, leading a slump in shares of the nation’s carriers on concern an outbreak of bird flu may hurttravel demand.
China Southern, the country’s biggest domestic carrier, fell 8.5 percent, the most since Jan. 16, 2012, to HK$3.87, while Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. (293) dropped the most in almost eight months. Shares in Air China Ltd. (601111), China Eastern Airlines Corp. (670), Singapore Airlines Ltd. (SIA) and Qantas Airways Ltd. (QAN) also declined, causing the Bloomberg Asia Pacific Airlines Index to drop the most since May.
The death toll in China from a new strain of bird flu rose to six people as Shanghai began slaughtering birds at a local market and concerns of an outbreak sparked the biggest drop in Hong Kong stocks in more than eight months. Previous outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and bird flu had emptied planes and caused some Asian airlines to post losses.
“People are worried the new bird flu would develop into a disaster like SARS,” Davin Wu, a transportation analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG, said by phone. “At least leisure travelers will be cutting back their trips to China.”
Shanghai, China’s financial hub, has reported six of the 14 human cases of the H7N9 strain of avian influenza confirmed by local authorities since the country’s health ministry reported the first cases last month, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.
