Dubai: Emirates Airlines has said it would stop using Airbus A380 double-decker aircraft to fly passengers between Dubai and New York because demand for the route has been hit by the global recession.

Starting 1 June, the Dubai-based carrier instead would redeploy the two A380s, it uses for two daily flights to New York, onto routes between the Emirate and Toronto and Bangkok.

“As the global economy has affected international air travel, this aircraft redeployment was based solely on a change in capacity demands in these three markets,” an airline statement said on Thursday.

Emirates would use Boeing 777s for the Dubai-New York route, it said, adding that the A380s would fly twice daily to Bangkok and three times a week to Toronto under the revised plan.

The airline has ordered 58 A380s, the world’s largest passenger aircraft, of which it was due to have five of the jumbo aircraft delivered by next month. Airbus is the plane making unit of European aerospace group EADS.