Lufthansa has placed a doctor on board each of its flights to Mexico; American Airlines has issued medical kits to cabin crews; British Airways is distributing face masks; and Alaska Airways is removing pillows as fears of a flu pandemic rattle the global aviation industry.

The last thing needed by an industry that was already spiraling toward a $4.7 billion loss this year, according to the International Air Transport Association, was another health scare like the SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, virus or the avian flu outbreaks that have hit airlines in the past 12 years.

So carriers are doing their utmost to reassure passengers that in the absence of travel restrictions by the World Health Organization, air travel is still safe, while accommodating those who may not wish to fly. So far, cancellations have been minimal, European airlines say, though the situation is more complicated in the Americas.

An industry that has learned the lessons of previous epidemics

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the avian flu crises in 1997 and 2004 and the outbreak of SARS in 2003 - is better prepared this time around, while improved communication on the progress of the disease means that travelers are less inclined to panic, the air transport group said. ''It was a much more hysterical situation then than we're seeing now,'' Tony Concil, a spokesman for the group, said, recalling the SARS crisis of 2003, when information about the disease was patchy. Traffic to Asia fell 50 percent, and about 24 percent worldwide, in the three months ending in May that year.

''In the SARS crisis we had countries saying 'We won't fly to Asia,' and countries with no SARS cases were impacted,'' Mr. Concil said.

Still, Giovanni Bisignani, the association's chief executive, warned last week that the timing of the swine influenza outbreak ''could not be worse'' for an industry already wound tight by a shrinking economy that had sent passenger demand into a nose dive. It was too soon, he said, to measure the fallout.