Boeing: Still No Dreamliner, but Not Much Competition, Either

(MoneyWatch)  It's not true that the first Boeing 787 Dreamliner was ordered by Orville and Wilbur Wright, although you'd be forgiven for thinking so with the time it has taken to move the plane from the drawing board to the airport. Boeing recently announced yet another delay that will keep the fuel-efficient, state-of-the-art passenger jet from being delivered to customers until early 2011, nearly three years after the original due date.

What's remarkable from an investment perspective is that throughout the serial postponements, Boeing's stock (BA) has held its own. It suffered a serious tumble after production difficulties first came to light, but in the last two years it has beaten the broad market; Boeing is flat, while the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is down about 14 percent.

There's a lot to like about Boeing as long as you ignore its poor time management. Airlines are in one of their rare profitable phases, which should put them in the mood to replenish their fleets.

The aviation industry is also expected to benefit from the economic expansion in emerging markets. It seems as though a new airport opens every day in Asia, and they all need planes.
Perhaps most important, Boeing has only one meaningful competitor, Airbus. It's hard to imagine a cushier position than to have as your only rival a European company with manufacturing facilities scattered across the continent.

The differences between each company's great flight hope highlights what's right about Boeing and wrong about Airbus. The 787 Dreamliner is easy on fuel and the environment, and it's designed for point-to-point flights - between any two of a multitude of cities. It holds around 300 passengers depending on the configuration.

The Airbus A380, which had years of delivery delays of its own, can carry more than 850 passengers, although the capacity for the standard three-class configuration is around 550. The A380 was designed for the hub-and spoke traffic system that was popular in the 1980s and 1990s but has been losing favor with airlines since.

Despite being offered for sale since 2000, four years sooner than the 787, barely more than 200 A380s have been ordered, many by Emirates, the flag carrier of Dubai, the tiny state on the Arabian Peninsula that has wrestled with creditors for much of the last year. Airlines have ordered more than 800 Dreamliners, by contrast, although some carriers have backed out recently. Great plane, shame about the delays.

So what's an investor to do? Focus on Boeing's various advantages or on the planes it can't push out the door? The answer may be both. Come back Thursday for one analyst's interesting, offbeat take on Boeing.