Although The Boeing Co. has a record backlog of orders and had been raising production rates to get more planes to customers, the global financial crisis and credit crunch will result in many of those orders being canceled or deferred, a Wall Street analyst said Friday.

Another analyst predicted that because of the ongoing Machinists strike and other factors, the first 787s won't be delivered to airlines until early 2010, rather than in the third quarter of next year.

Boeing can be expected to update the status of its 787, and provide analysts with a better understanding of the impact of the credit crunch on its customers and its delivery schedule, when it reports on third-quarter earnings Oct. 22.

"We believe that the inability to obtain financing will cause customers to defer or cancel orders," Goldman Sachs analyst Richard Safran wrote in a note to clients. "As a result, we believe (Boeing) will lower production rates."

Boeing will have to drastically cut deliveries in 2010, he predicted.

Safran lowered his estimate of how many planes Boeing will deliver in 2009 to 462, down from 489. But in 2010, he said, Boeing will deliver only 392 planes. That's well off Safran's previous estimate of 524.

In July, when Boeing announced earnings for the second quarter, the company said it planned to deliver between 475 and 480 planes this year. But that was before the Machinists strike, which delayed the delivery of about 30 planes in September. Boeing also said in July that it expected to deliver between 500 and 505 planes in 2009. And deliveries would be even higher in 2010 as the 787 program ramped up.

If Safran is correct, it's not clear what so many order cancellations or deferrals would mean for jobs at Boeing's Puget Sound area plants. Boeing has been hiring to meet the backlog demand. And many of the Machinists had been working many hours of overtime before the strike halted production.

Since January, Boeing has added more than 3,000 jobs in its commercial jet business. Most, but not all, of those jobs were in the company's Puget Sound area plants.

Safran's report helped to push Boeing's already sagging stock even lower in trading on the New York Stock Exchange. At one point, Boeing shares hit $40, the lowest the stock has been since March 2004. The shares closed at $41.80, down $2.61, or nearly 6 percent.

After hitting a 52-week high last year of $107.83 a share, Boeing's stock price began to tumble after it announced in October 2007 the first of three embarrassing delays for its 787.

Safran's report runs counter to a memo from Boeing Chairman and Chief Executive Jim McNerney late last week, in which he talked about the effect of the financial crisis on Boeing.

He acknowledged that Boeing's customers may have a harder time getting financing to lease or buy new planes.

"This has raised speculation about the ability of Boeing's customers to finance airplane purchases," McNerney wrote.

He said Boeing is in a "strong position" to provide financing if needed.

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