Boeing (BA - option chain) stock is trading lower today on conflicting reports about the company's timeline for the debut of its highly-anticipated, but much-delayed 787 Dreamliner. Aviation Week published a report late Friday that the company has told several customers that delivery of its 787 Dreamliner will be delayed by up to 10 months, but Boeing denies this report, saying it intends to meet the current delivery date of Q1 2011. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on BA.

Word that Boeing's next-generation plane, the 787 Dreamliner, may not fly until 2010, according to The Seattle Times, is bad news not just for the company, it's a negative data point for the U.S. economy.

The 787's engineers must correct a wing flaw that extends to inside the plane: 17 long stiffening rods, called "stringers," on each wing's upper skin, sustained damage that occurred just beyond the aircraft's "limit load," which is the maximum load the wing is expected to bear in service, The Times said. In other words, the wing damage occurred when the wing was well below the load the wings must bear to be federally certified to carry passengers.

The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) has announced its fourth delay in delivering its first of nearly 900 unit order backlog of its 787 Dreamliner from the original May 2008 to the current first quarter 2010. After parts problems and an eight week machinists strike, this does not come as a surprise but many customers are probably wondering whether there will be more delays in the future. Unfortunately, it is unclear whether Boeing has learned enough from these delays to keep them from happening in the future.

If a study by Boeing competitor, Airbus, is to be believed, the 787 has been plagued by a wide range of management problems. The study suggests that when Boeing outsourced a significant portion of the 787's design and assembly integration, it failed in overseeing those partners. Airbus's study suggests that Boeing should have known about the following six problems:

• Its partners' factory workers lacked the skill to do their jobs - The study claims that these workers were "low-wage, trained-on-the-job workers that had no previous aerospace experience."
• Some of its partners lacked design staff - The study claims that one of its partners, Vought, "had no engineering department when selected" by Boeing.
• Some of its suppliers could not produce enough parts - The study claims there was "insufficient supply of frame, clips brackets and floor beams."

The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) has had significant problems meeting its schedule to deliver its new 787 Dreamliner. It has a nearly 900 aircraft backlog but it has delayed the delivery three times already. Now it looks poised to announce a fourth one -- as long as six months. This is making customers frustrated and is likely to cost shareholders.

The 787's delays have resulted from a variety of problems. The most significant was that Boeing outsourced some 70% of the design and manufacture of the 787 to suppliers around the world -- with the idea of snapping the pieces together in Washington state when the components were ready. But Boeing did not monitor the suppliers closely enough so it was surprised when some of them did not meet their production schedules.

Meanwhile, the strike by its machinists union has delayed by 10 weeks the delivery dates of the 3,734 jetliners in its order book. But the 787 is running into other problems such as still fixing bugs in the software that runs its systems, from the electric brakes to cockpit instruments. And with customers being frustrated by the missed delivery dates, Boeing is struggling with how much slack to build into the schedule so it can give them a truly firm date.

Since its stock peaked in September 2007 at $105, Boeing Inc. (NYSE: BA) has lost 59% of its value. It has misfired on multiple fronts: it was unable to meet its original delivery schedule for a new aircraft, the 787; it lost a $35 billion bid to build an airborne refueling tanker which was canceled due to irregularities and is scheduled to be rebid next year; and it's suffering through a strike of its 27,000-member machinists union that began in early September.

Today Boeing announced a big decline in earnings. Specifically, Boeing net income dropped 38% to 96 cents a share -- two cents below analysts' expectations. And its revenues fell 7% to $15.29 billion, slightly higher than the $14.61 billion analysts had expected. The strike has delayed deliveries significantly. Without the strike, Boeing would have shipped 119 planes during the quarter, but ended up with 35 fewer than planned.

Are Boeing's woes at their bottom? It is scheduled to go back to the negotiating table tomorrow, but it is unclear whether either side will budge. Meanwhile, Boeing had expected to start delivering its 787 in the third quarter of 2009; however, meeting that deadline now appears uncertain. Boeing stock is down 7.8% today, suggesting that analysts are deeply disappointed.