The head of Dubai's Emirates issued a furious reaction to a public suggestion by Airbus that it might discontinue the A380 superjumbo and told Reuters it was ready to invest massively in an upgraded version if the planemaker went ahead with it.

Tim Clark, president of Emirates airline, said he had protested to Airbus after its finance director aired the possibility of cancelling the world's largest airliner project due to poor sales.

Finance Director Harald Wilhelm said Airbus would be able to breakeven on the A3 80 through 2018 "if we would do something on the product, or even if we would discontinue the product".