Imagine being able to fetch water when you need it mid-flight? Or grab a snack between meals? As I found recently, you get a bit more freedom within the confines of the walls of the largest commercial aircraft.

My first flight aboard the gigantic Airbus 380 was approached with hesitance and fear of spending the next half-day in a middle seat. That's a fear, I'm sure, we've all had at least once in the past. My fear tempered when I spotted a window-seat behind my assigned row. The last row, but a window in the last is much better than a middle in the second-to-last!

The jet age is starting to re-assert itself, which is why I'm Reiterating my Buy rating for United Technologies (NYSE: UTX), first recommended on February 13, 2009 at a price of $47.09. If you bought UTX in February, you're up about 35%.

The projected 3-4% FY2010 revenue growth for UTX is looking a tad low, due to large order backlogs for both Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Airbus. Wall Street had factored-in some order deferments/cancellations, and that did weigh on United Technologies shares this summer, but now it appears the D/Cs will not be as large, which removes a potential revenue cloud.

Kudos to The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA): when a new technology won't do (for the immediate future, anyway), they re-vamp and re-deploy some of the old to best a competitor.

Stung by production and first flight delays to its next-generation 787 Dreamliner, Boeing announced Tuesday that it may build a new wing for the 777, an existing long-range, wide-body airliner, Bloomberg News reported. Boeing's shares fell 65 cents to $48.87 Tuesday afternoon.

Airbus is asking for government assistance, which raises the question of how bad the airline manufacturing industry will get. Not only has Boeing (NYSE: BA) been hurt by labor problems and a strike, but the most damage to its finances will come as airlines around the world cut orders already in place and stop making new orders.

According to the AP, "A senior Airbus official says the plane maker wants financing help from other European governments following a $6.4 billion aid package from France last month."

Is it imaginable that Boeing could need money? A year ago, no one believed that Detroit would need a dime.

The traditional response -- and defense -- for a late delivery is 'Better late than never." Regarding The Boeing Company's (NYSE: BA) delayed 787 Dreamliner, the stance is, 'Better be great, or never.' The Dreamliner, Boeing's next-generation wide-body, has been dubbed the '7-Late-7,' due to the company's four delivery delays that have pushed back its first delivery to Q1 2010.

From a commercial aviation standpoint, delaying a delivering is like showing up late for the first semester of classes at college. In the 787's case, Boeing looks like it will arrive on campus about four weeks into the semester, so says stock analyst C. Leonard Bauer.

With the company having reached a tentative, new, 4-year contract agreement with its engineers, it appears Boeing will avoid a second, internecine work stoppage.

What Boeing will not be able to do, however, is avoid a decidedly downward revision in company and stock performance expectations, so says Stock Analyst C. Leonard Bauer.

U.S. business: A difficult decade

Bauer, not one to wax philosophic, nevertheless takes a historian's-like view of Boeing's actions -- and the actions of numerous other companies -- in recent years.

"It's as if we decided as a nation to place all of the most idiotic, self-defeating, and economically-damaging business decisions in one decade," Bauer said. "It's as if the whole business community attended the wrong business school." The Boeing Company's (NYSE: BA) shares rose 45 cents to $42.51 in Monday afternoon trading.

In the quarters ahead, new autos may not be the only inventory item piling up.

A 'really big ticket item' -- new commercial airplanes -- may start piling up, as well. Boeing and Airbus may end up with as many as 200 new planes without buyers in 2009 because airlines are unable to obtain funds to pay for them, due to the credit crunch.

In the second half of 2008, banks and other sources of capital decreased lending to airlines -- and to just about everyone else, it seems -- on concerns the loans won't be paid back. Other banks are decreasing lending primarily as a means of rebuilding damaged balance sheets.

The lending cutback may create a funding gap of about $65 billion at Boeing next year, and a $20 billion gap at Airbus. Boeing Capital Corp., the airplane manufacturing giant's financing unit, is expected to make $1 billion in loans to customers in 2009.

Another difficult data point for Boeing's 787 Dreamliner.

Boeing announced that it will delay the first test flight of its next-generation jetliner, the 787 Dreamliner, beyond Q4, citing the recently-ended machinists strike, Bloomberg News reported.

Further, the company set no new time frame for the plane, the test flight of which has already been delayed three times and is currently 15 months behind schedule, Bloomberg News reported. An eight-week strike with the machinists union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, was settled November 2, with machinists approving a new contract shortly thereafter.

The Boeing Company's (NYSE: BA) shares slid $4.09 to $49.53 Wednesday afternoon amid a broader market sell-off.

One of the little-noticed political endorsements from last week was that of former Ronald Reagan chief of staff, Kenneth Duberstein, who broke with his party to endorse Barack Obama. Why did he do this? The far more influential, Colin Powell, helped break the ice for Duberstein. And Duberstein was clearly not thrilled with the pick of the delightfully chipper, Sarah Palin, as VP, telling MSNBC, "Even at McDonalds (NYSE: MCD), you're interviewed three times before you're given a job."

But it could be that Duberstein had a much more practical business reason for endorsing Obama -- a $35 billion contract for Boeing Inc. (NYSE: BA) of which he is a director. And Boeing stands to lose that contract if McCain is elected. How so? John McCain's national finance committee chair, Tom Loeffler, is a lobbyist for a French company that is competing with Boeing for the contract to build airborne refueling tankers for the Air Force. McCain's campaign received $14,000 in contributions from workers at EADS, the parent of France's Airbus, which is competing against Boeing in a joint bid with Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) for the contract.

My sources suggested that McCain was behind the process irregularities that caused the General Accounting Office (GAO) to recommend that the bidding process be canceled and the contract rebid back in June. And there's little doubt that if McCain wins tomorrow's election, he is in the tanker tank for Airbus and it will cost Boeing the contract. So could Duberstein believe that Obama is a better candidate for the country? Absolutely. And would an Obama victory be better for Boeing than for France's Airbus? Sure.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. Portfolio will publish his book about Boeing, You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing, in December 2008. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.

What a September.

The Yankees fade during the stretch and don't make the play-offs. And Yankee Stadium, The House That Ruth Built, has closed, forever. Meanwhile, the stock market frequently looks like it wants to close.

Well, at least Boeing (NYSE: BA) is doing well. No, wait, Boeing too is closed, temporarily, due to a strike.

And now there's word that Boeing will reassess its 787 Dreamliner delivery schedule for the Japanese market once the ongoing strike ends, Reuters reported Tuesday.

Analysts fear that a failure of Boeing and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers to reach an agreement that has idled 27,000 machines could further push-back the 787's delivery timetable. The IAM strike began September 6. Boeing has already delayed delivery of its next-generation 787 airplane by 18 months. Boeing's shares rose $1.52 to $56.99 Tuesday afternoon amid a broader market rally.

Not a September Sinatra would sing about

"I guess this September was meant to be a month with all bad news, because it certainly seems that way," Stock Analyst C. Leonard Bauer said. "Boeing was one of the few bright spots on a pretty dismal domestic economic landscape. Great new products, solid orders, a good future for the company and the stock. But then management and the union can't agree on compensation. Pretty sad."

It is hard to do business, make sales, and drive profits when your company is shut down by a strike. It also aids the competition.

Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) is finding that out the hard way. According to Bloomberg, "Airbus SAS, starting its first aircraft assembly today outside Europe, said it may buy up to $1 billion of components from China by 2020, as the world's most populous nation may need 3,000 planes in the next 20 years."

By putting a plant inside China and offering to put money into the economy, Airbus is making best friends with the central government, a move that is almost certain to garner significant orders from the nation's commercial airlines.

Boeing management made a huge mistake by allowing its machinists to go out on strike instead of improving their compensation packages enough to keep the company operating. Boeing said that its margins could be hurt by the size of the deal the union wanted. The machinists knew better. They could see the size of the Boeing back-orders for products like the new Dreamliner going out for years and year driving higher and higher sales.

Each day that the strike goes on, Boeing risks losing more customers to Airbus. Management has not done the shareholders any favors.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Reuters reports that EADS, the parent of Airbus, has suggested it may not bid for the $35 billion Air Force contract for airborne refueling tankers. Reuters quotes a senior EADS manager as saying, "We will only bid if we can be sure that we stand a fair chance." This threat mirrors the one that Boeing Inc. (NYSE: BA) made recently -- a threat that paid off for Boeing when the Secretary of Defense announced this week that the tanker competition would be canceled and rebid sometime after the November election.

This puts a French company as a player in this November's election. How so? Because one of the candidates, John McCain, is rooting for an EADS victory. That's because his former chief of finance, Tom Loeffler, is a lobbyist for EADS whose employees have contributed $14,000 to McCain's campaign. And those ties likely corrupted the previous bidding process that led the General Accounting Office (GAO) in June to report that the process was flawed -- leading to a rebid. It is too early to know whether EADS money will pay off in an election victory for McCain.

However, for Boeing, the news of EADS copying its tactic of threatening to withdraw its bid is the sincerest form of flattery. Meanwhile, Boeing's victory in getting the bid delayed could be a Pyrrhic one -- in other words it could win a short-term battle and lose the war as did "King Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans at Heraclea in 280 BC and Asculum in 279 BC during the Pyrrhic War," according to Wikipedia.

Boeing's (NYSE: BA) largest union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, is in its third day of a strike that's idled 27,000 workers. An aviation consultant argued that the strike could last more than a month, if history is any guide, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday.

However, Stock Analyst C. Leonard Bauer said what counts in work stoppages is not so much company/sector precedent, but "the reality of the facts on the ground ... the nature of the issues involved." Bauer added that he does not have a rating on nor own shares in Boeing.

"The two sides are reasonably close on the standard pay increase, it's pension payment increases and the use of outside contractor for work that the two sides are far from agreement on," Bauer said. "Boeing is booming now and the IAM wants some assurance that their retirees' pension will not go the way of other corporate pension plans, which were revised lower as corporations faced tougher times. The two sides are still pretty far apart on that issue, as well as on the use of outside contractors." Boeing's shares rose 80 cents to $64.71 in Tuesday morning trading.

Given the above, a strike of less than a month "would be a moral victory," Bauer said.

For Boeing (NYSE: BA), there's more hinging on today's machinists' contract vote than the company's primary labor costs over the next three years.

"The fate of future orders for the 787 Dreamliner could weigh in the balance," stock analyst C. Leonard Bauer told BloggingStocks Wednesday.

About 27,000 members in the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union in Washington State, Oregon and Kansas will vote today concerning whether to accept a three-year contract, The Associated Press reported Wednesday. Contact vote results are expected Wednesday night.

Shares of Boeing (NYSE: BA) rose 90 cents to $66.79 in Wednesday morning trading.

Despite Boeing's offer of a $5,000 signing bonus and a pay increase totaling 11% over the 3-year contract, its passage is hardly a slam dunk, Bauer said. "I know the media likes to portray every major union contract as a big deal, but this one really is a big issue. There are a lot of nervous parties watching this vote, parts suppliers to Boeing, businesses in the affected regions, and of course, almost every major airline around the world," Bauer said. "A protracted strike at Boeing would jeopardize several commercial airplane delivery timetables."

Work stoppage could hurt 787 orders

"We've looked at several ways to play anticipated growth in wind energy; we've also considered titanium makers for that industry's ties to the production of lightweight, modern aircraft," notes Bill Martin.

In his BullMarket.com, he explains, "While the two trends might not appear to have much in common at first glance, Hexcel Corp. (NYSE: HXL) offers a way to play both the aircraft and wind markets.

"The connection is the lightweight, composite materials Hexcel makes that are used by producers in both sectors. Hexcel develops and manufactures advanced structural materials.

"It is the largest U.S. producer of carbon fiber; the world's largest weaver of reinforcement fabrics; and the number-one producer of composite materials.

"Its product was initially developed for the aerospace industry, but is now used in a wide range of applications -- from golf clubs to satellite arrays, and from the rotor blades of wind turbines to life-saving monocoques for Formula 1 race cars.

"It's been a rollercoaster ride for Hexcel's stock in the past 12 months. The shares hit their one-year peak of $27.19 in December 2007; by January 22nd they had plummeted to $17.. The shares rebounded through May, only to fade again. Year to date, HXL is off about 15%.