Europe's biggest plane maker has announced that it might abandon the United Kingdom entirely if it sees a bad deal when the country exits the European Union in March next year.

Airbus says it would consider pulling the trigger if Brexit happened without a trade deal in place.

But even a plan to split Britain more gradually away from the EU's market, ending in December 2020, wouldn't be enough.

Because, Airbus says, it still wouldn't give them enough time to adapt their supply chain.

They've previously said that they're trying to stockpile more spare parts for their planes to build a buffer in case there's a big disruption when Brexit officially hits.

The company is headquartered in France and the lack of certainty around Brexit has been a headache for it and other big multinationals.

Airbus claims it employs 15,000 people in the UK, and its presence there supports an additional 117,000 British jobs.