Emirates airline said on Wednesday it was replacing two Airbus A380s on the Dubai-New York route with Boeing 777s amid lower passenger numbers because of the global economic downturn.

"Effective June 1st, two of Emirates? Airbus A380 aircraft, currently operating on one of the two daily Dubai-New York JFK services, will be redeployed to the three-times weekly Dubai-Toronto service and to one of the two daily Dubai-Bangkok services," a statement said.

"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," a spokesman for the Dubai-based carrier said.

"The A380 will be replaced by Boeing?s B777-300ER" on the New York service and Emirates would evaluate the A380 for it again "when economic conditions improve."

On Monday the airline said it remains confident in the Airbus A380, despite some technical problems, and denied it had cancelled any orders, after the Germany weekly Der Spiegel said Emirates is unhappy with its first four A380s.

The airline is Airbus's biggest customer for the double-decker A380, having ordered 58 of them.