Lufthansa, the German airline, has announced that Asian bird flu has had no effect on the company’s bookings.

Wolfgang Mayrhuber, chair, told German newspaper Tagesspiegel on Friday that he doesn’t believe the disease will affect tourism in the same way as last years SARS epidemic.

Earlier in the month, a suspected case of bird flu was declared a false alarm in Hamburg.

Following the all clear, he said: “The experts have now explained how the sickness transmits, so I don’t believe hysteria will break out this time.”

However, hopes of a quick eradication of the disease in Asia were quashed over the weekend, as scientists in Vietnam confirmed that the virus had jumped from chicken to pigs.

The three major pandemics of human influenza – the latest in 1968 – were all results of bird flu changing its structure and overcoming the species barrier.