Boeing Plane Orders Boom -- With Help From the U.S. Navy!

Boeing 737s in flight. Soon, we'll be seeing these even more often. Image source:Boeing.

It's been a long, long month since Boeing last reported appreciable numbers of plane orders in its order book. This week, however, we finally saw Boeing move the needle, as plane orders leapt for the skies.

What Boeing told us this weekBoeing's latest update on airplane firm orders came out Thursday at noon, as it does most weeks. The tally this week, however, was bigger than in most weeks.

According to the company, Boeing received no fewer than 70 new plane orders in the final week of August -- each and every one of them a 737. Buyers included:

Chinese discount airline Ruili, which ordered 30 of Boeing's 737s.
Jet2.com Ltd, a smallish British airline that, according to S&P Capital IQ, was formerly known as Channel Express (Air Services) Limited. They ordered 27 single-aisle 737s.
The United States Navy ordered nine 737s, which will be converted into P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft.
Australia ordered four more 737s, also for conversion into P-8A Poseidons.

On the bad-news side of the ledger, Boeing suffered four cancellations of orders for 747 jumbo jets. Financially speaking, though, Boeing is still "up" for the week.

Pulling a model at random (because Boeing does not specify in its order book), let's say all 70 of these new firm orders were for 737 MAX 8 airliners. At an advertised average list price of $110 million apiece, that's $7.7 billion in new revenue for Boeing. Minus $1.5 billion (the list price for four big 747-8s), Boeing comes out of the week ahead by about $6.2 billion.

The tallySo, where does this leave Boeing, here at the beginning of September? Year to date, Boeing has accumulated gross orders for:

349 single-aisle 737s
54 widebody 777s
50 Dreamliner 787s
48 Boeing 767s
Four 747s

In total, that's 505 gross plane orders. Boeing has also seen 58 orders canceled, however, and as we've discovered this week, that includes all four of those 747 Big Birds. This leaves Boeing with 447 net new plane orders on its order book.

What it means to the orders raceBoeing archrival Airbusordinarily releases its own plane order tallies monthly, not weekly, and usually on or about the fourth of the month. So, we should be getting an update from Euro-land any moment now. For the time being, though, Airbus' gross orders year to date remain where they were at the end of July: 408 gross orders, 41 cancellations, and a net order tally of 367 planes.

For the time being, Boeing retains its lead.

The article Boeing Plane Orders Boom -- With Help From the U.S. Navy! originally appeared on Fool.com.

Rich Smithdoes not own shares of, nor is he short, any company named above. You can find him onMotley Fool CAPS, publicly pontificating under the handleTMFDitty, where he's currently ranked No. 260 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.