The Airbus A380, known for many years during its development phase as the Airbus A3XX, is the largest airliner in the world by a substantial margin when it enters service. The aircraft, manufactured by Airbus Industrie, is scheduled to start flying in 2005, with deliveries to start in 2006. Launch customers include Lufthansa, Emirates Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Air France, Qantas, Virgin Atlantic, Korean Air, Qatar Airways, and International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC). In July 2004, Etihad Airways purchased four Airbus A380 for delivery in 2007, at the same time as the first A380 prototypes began to emerge from the Toulouse assembly plant.
The Airbus A380 was launched with an uneveiling ceremony held in Toulouse, France, on January 18, 2005, at 11:57 am CET.
This is an almost perfect chart.
The Moon in exaltation in Taurus and the 1st house relates to this huge plane acting like a very comfortable home for its passengers: bars and other different recreational locations, even a library and a waterfall. It is the planetary hour of the Moon.
Mercury culminating, in tight conjunction with Venus, is a mark of the upcoming (or already present?) celebrity of this luxury plane.
For this to be a perfect chart I would have preferred to see an applying Moon- Mercury trine, not a separating one, even by this tiny orb. The next aspect of the Moon is a square with Neptune (illusions, confusion), ruler of the 12th house (unexpected events, sabotage), located in the 11th house and Aquarius (technology, social groups). This could spell unhappy events for the future of the Airbus A380, unexpected technlogical problems or disasters.
Yet, as an overall image, the last aspect of the Moon in Taurus is a harmonious aspect, a trine with the Sun, ruler of the 5th house (luxury, pleasures), dispositor of the Pars of of Fortune (located at 8 Leo 10, not shown in the chart), so we can expect the A380 to have a long successful existence bringing joy and comfort to its passengers.
More information will be provided by the chart of the first take-off of the Airbus A380.
In the years prior to the decision to begin the project, both Airbus and arch-rival Boeing had spent a great deal of effort on considering the very-large-airliner market. Although both manufacturers issued varying statements from time to time, the unspoken but clear consensus was that there was probably room for one maker to be profitable in the 600 to 800 seat market segment, but not two. Both were conscious of the graphic illustration of the business risk involved in splitting a niche market provided by the simultaneous debut of the Douglas DC-10 and the Lockheed Tristar: similarly sized tri-jet widebody airliners, either one of which would have profitably filled the gap between the Douglas DC-8 and the Boeing 747 if only the other one had not taken half its market. Having seen first Lockheed and then Douglas run into financial difficulties and be forced out of the air transport industry, Airbus and Boeing were very conscious that the decision to build a 600 seat airliner could not be taken lightly. Airbus has initially approched Boeing with an offer to develop the plane together, but Boeing declined. Boeing may have feared that a larger plane may threaten Boeing 747 sales.
Neither manufacturer could afford the enormous capital cost of developing an all-new airliner, especially one of A380 size, unless there was a reasonable expectation of having exclusive access to the market segment - and yet neither could afford not to develop a 600 seater if the other did. To do nothing would be to cede market leadership to the competition.
The initial advantage was with Boeing. Boeing's 747, although designed in the 1960s, had been kept up-to-date and was larger than Airbus' largest jet, the A340. For many airlines, the extra size of the 747 made that type a "must buy" for their highest density routes, and the cost advantages of fleet commonality were an incentive to buy smaller Boeings as well. There was room to stretch the 747-400 and still retain reasonable seat-distance costs, while the A340, in its A340-600 version, has reached its upper limit.