Boeing 787 Dreamliner Deliveries Still Just A Drop In The Bucket (BA)

Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) is out with its fourth quarter deliveries and all of the great forecasts for the 787 Dreamliner super-sized jumbo jet are going to still be quite a ways out into the future.  This cannot be a surprise and the company did not signal that there would be an upside to this figure, but of the 128 planes delivered in the fourth quarter of 2011 only 2 of those were the famed 787 Dreamliner.  That makes for 3 Dreamliner deliveries out of the entire 477 planes delivered in 2011. That figure will rise through time obviously.  We only track the commercial aircraft deliveries rather than the defense, space, and security program units because those can fluctuate so wildly regardless of the economy.

The orders were far higher and Boeing shares are currently down 1.6% at $73.14.  CNBC is representing this as a slight disappointment and asking whether the 787 Dreamliner deliveries can get up to the target of 10 787 Dreamliner deliveries each month by the end of 2013.  Maybe it is ambitious and maybe not, but the Dreamliner program has had so many delays that it seems unrealistic to expect that every single monthly target is going to live up to expectations.

Now the hope is that maybe Boeing was under-promising so that it can over-deliver.