Boeing says it's seriously talking with eight or ten airline customers about buying the passenger version of Boeing's new 747-8.

The updated version of the venerable jumbo jet has accumulated 110 orders, a respectable number a year before the plane's first flight, but most of those orders are for the freighter version of the plane.

Only Lufthansa among major airlines has ordered the passenger version called the 747 Intercontinental.

Boeing Chairman Jim McNerney said he expects the plane will generate orders for passenger versions of the plane before the year is out.

"The guys are working this hard," said McNerney.

The 747 has received only one order this year, from an unidentified customer who wants to use the jet for personal transportation.

McNerney's comments came during a quarterly earnings call.

Other news nuggets from that call:

* Boeing is still undecided whether it will update its 777 to compete with the largest version of Airbus' planned A350, the A350-10. The Boeing chairman said the company still has several years to see how Airbus does with the A350 and how the airline industry reacts before making such a decision.

* A major economic downturn for U.S. domestic airlines will likely have only a minimal effect on Boeing's order book, McNerney said. Most of the company's airliner backlog is due to foreign airline orders financed through the U.S. Export-Import Bank, he said. Order cancellations and deferrals could amount to six or seven percent of Boeing's orders, but with a five-year-backlog, those reversals will have little effect on the company's production.

* Despite three delays and parts shortages with its new 787 program, Boeing won't repudiate its new production and design scheme that outsources responsibility to major partner companies around the world, the Boeing CEO said. On the next major aircraft program the company "might draw some lines in different places," McNerney said. "There might be more of an adjustment to our strategy rather than a change," he said.

Few can escape the long tentacles of the nation's withering housing market – not Pierce County, not the Simpson Timber Company, and not even the Port of Tacoma.

At the port's annual breakfast this morning, Executive Director Tim Farrell noted that the housing market drives much the port's container volume.

(Think Home Depot and Target importing their products from Asia via the port).

Thus the housing downturn is hurting the port's business as well. So far this year container volume is down by 6 percent and imports are down by 10 percent.

Meanwhile, the declining value of the dollar is significantly boosting the export cargo headed out of Tacoma.

"Every container right now is leaving full," Farrell told a packed room at the Hotel Murano in downtown Tacoma.

"Customers have export cargo ready to go – they just can't find containers to put it in," Farrell said.

Earlier this year many anticipated the nation's economy to pick up by the end of this year.

Farrell is less optimistic now.

"I wouldn't expect a significant improvement in the economy until mid-2009," he said.

In addition to Farrell's port update, the port also used the annual gathering to recognize the work of some its partners.

The port honored:

- The Tacoma Urban League for work with its youth conservation corps

- The City of Tacoma, Schnizter Steel and the Cascade Land Conservancy for preserving open space in Northeast Tacoma

- IKEA for its investment in Frederickson

- And the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, Marine View Ventures, the tribe's economic development company, and SSA Marine for its coordination with the port on plans to build a container terminal on the Blair Waterway.

Nordstrom Inc. President Blake W. Nordstrom took a 36 percent cut in total compensation in 2007, a year in which the luxury retailer’s financial results showed that even wealthy shoppers were feeling the effects of economic uncertainty, The Associated Press reports.

Nordstrom, 47, received compensation for the year valued at $2.3 million dollars, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing earlier this month, compared with $3.6 million in 2006.

The executive’s salary was cut a slim 2 percent to $698,056.

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The Better Business Bureau of Western Washington is out with its quarterly list of the 20 Most-Complained-About businesses.

See if the list corresponds to your own. (And it's good to see, from where I sit, that newspaper bloggers who write about Top 20 Lists are not listed herein.)

Here goes:

1. Cellular phone service and supplies
2. Computer software and services
3. Internet shopping services
4. Internet services
5. Auto dealers - new cars
6. Collection agencies
7. Travel agencies and bureaus
8. Banks
9. Auto dealers - used cars
10. Furniture - retail
11. Plumbing contractors
12. Searchers of records
13. Auto repair and service
14. Apartments
15. (tie) Wholesalers and distributors
15. (tie) Health clubs
17. Roofing contractors
18. (tie) Television - cable, CATV and satellite
18. (tie) Real estate management
20. Telephone communications

A spate of bad news about its 787 Dreamliner and its proposal for a new Air Force tanker haven't even scratched Boeing Co.'s stellar earnings the company said this morning.B

Earnings per share grew by 43 percent for the first quarter over the same period last year. Operating margins were up 2.8 percentage points to 11.3 percent and cash flow increased by 166 percent to $1.933 billion.

That performance easily surpassed analysts' estimates. That consensus estimate among Wall Street analysts that follow Boeing was for earnings of $1.35 a share.

Boeing stock closed today at $82.09 a share, up $3.53 over Tuesday's close. That price is the first time Boeing stock has crossed the $80 barrier since March 7 before the latest 787 delay news.

And the company continues to promise that results will get even better in the next few months and years. Earnings per share for this year will be in a range from $5.70 to $5.85 a share, and next year's results will show a 20 percent boost to between $6.80 and $7.00 a share.

Attribute all of this to the company's efforts to contain costs and a bulging order book. Boeing's backlog now totals $346 billion, more than five times its current annual sales.

The company's efficiencies were evident in comparing revenue growth versus earnings. While revenues in the first quarter of 2008 grew by a modest four percent, earnings per share grew by a disportionate 43 percent.

Some of that extra earnings growth was due to company stock buybacks. The number of shares outstanding has declined, so the earnings per share are somewhat greater.

But that phenomenon was only small factor in the disportionate earnings growth. Net income rose 38 percent in the first quarter to $1.211 billion.

"We're off to a good start in what we expect to be annother strong year of financial performance for Boeing,
said the company's chairman, Jim McNerney. "We are methodically working through our challenges, including the start up of the 787, and our people remain focused on satisfying our customes and leveraging growth and productivity into better bottom-lkine and top-line performance for our company."

The performance increase was particularly notable in the company's Puget Sound-based commercial airplanes operations where operating margins rose from 9.3 percent last year to 12 percent this year.

This comes in spite of major issues with the 787 Dreamliner which have three times postponed the plane's first flight and its first commercial delivery.

The Dreamliner is now scheduled to fly for the first time in the late fall or early winter this year and the first delivery will be in the third quarter of next year.

Originally the plane was to fly in late August last year and the delivery of the first plane to launch customer ANA was to be next month.

Customers continue to order the game-changing, fuel efficient airplane despite delivery delays. Boeing booked orders for 75 of the planes during the first quarter bringing the order total to 892 planes.

Boeing is also in the midst of a protest of the Air Force's award for a new airborne tanker to a consortium of Northrop Grumman and Airbus. Boeing had proposed a tanker based on the Everett-built 767.