And All of a Sudden, Boeing's 787 Dreamliner Is Popular Again!

Boeing 787 orders are flying high -- and have almost reached cruising altitude. Source: Boeing.

The 787 "Dreamliner" program continues to serve as more of a nightmare for Boeing .

Reporting earnings for the first time in 2015, Boeing warned investorslast month that deferred production costs (aka, "losses") at the company's troubled Dreamliner program are continuing to grow.

Company CFO Greg Smithstill thinks Boeing will begin breaking even on incremental 787 sales later this year. But at last report, Boeing put accumulated losses on the 787 program as a whole at nearly $27 billion. Working that number back down, and emerging with a profit at the end, requires that Boeing sell at least 1,300 planes, so as to spread development costs across a vast number of units.

So, here's some good news for Boeing investors at last: 787s are starting to sell.

Updating the numbers at BoeingWhen last we checked in on Boeing's order book, the Seattle plane maker had booked orders for some 139 aircraft, suffered 25 cancellations, and thus had 114 "net" new orders for the year. One week later, here's how the numbers look:

80 gross orders for single-aisle 737s
44 new 787 Dreamliners
25 units of the 777
three 747 jumbo jets
one single 767

Add it all up, and Boeing's "gross" plane orders stand at 153 jets through the first week of May. No new cancellations have been reported, so that makes the number of net new orders 128 -- up 14 from last week.

Getting specificAnd what new planes did Boeing sell over the past week, you ask? Well, the company says it took in five orders for new 777 jetliners from an "unidentified customer(s)." (That's good news. 777s are one of Boeing's most profitable airplanes.)

Even more important for a company that's trying to scale up 787 production, though, are the new 787 orders Boeing booked -- nine of them. Specifically, Boeing noted that Air Tahiti Nui is buying two 787s, a "business jet / VIP" customer is buying one more, and "unidentified customer(s)" have signed up for an even half dozen.

Boeing didn't go into specifics on the exact models of planes sold. But a midsize 787-9, for example, lists for $257 million at Boeing, suggesting the total value of the past week's 787 sales could exceed $2.3 billion. Add five 777-9Xes (for example -- the 777-9X is Boeing's biggest version of the new "triple-seven"), and the week's total take could exceed $4.2 billion.

The upshot for investorsAccording to the latest S&P Capital IQ data, Boeing's Commercial Airplanes business sells nearly $60 billion in airplanes annually -- about $1.15 billion a week. This past week, however, the company may have sold nearly four times that much, and made real progress toward its goal of 1,300 Dreamliners sold.

With 1,104 orders on its booksthrough the end of April (269 delivered, 835 outstanding), Boeing's goal finally looks within reach. Here's hoping the promised profits will follow.

The Boeing 787 is a pretty plane. Pity it's still pretty unprofitable. Source: Boeing.

The article And All of a Sudden, Boeing's 787 Dreamliner Is Popular Again! originally appeared on Fool.com.

Rich Smithdoes not own shares of, nor is he short, any company named above. You can find him on CAPS, publicly pontificating under the handleTMFDitty, where he's currently ranked No. 355 out of more than 75,000 rated members.The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.