Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) is scheduled to report first-quarter results before markets open Wednesday. Consensus estimates call for quarterly earnings per share (EPS) of $1.81 on revenues of $22.49 billion. A year ago, Boeing reported first-quarter EPS of $1.76 on revenues of $20.5 billion.

Earlier this month, Boeing reported that it had delivered a total of 184 commercial jets in the first quarter of 2015. The total includes 121 737s, 24 777s and 30 787 Dreamliners. At that rate the company is a little behind its delivery forecast for the full year of 750 to 755 commercial jets.

There is not much chance that Boeing will miss estimates, but stranger things have happened. For example, no one except Boeing and its customers know exactly how much a customer pays for a new Boeing jet. List prices, though not entirely meaningless, are more of a guide than anything else. Discounts of 40% are common and larger ones are not unlikely.

The falling price of fuel may cause some orders to be deferred, as the airlines make do with their existing planes. To counter that, Boeing likely will have to offer steeper discounts to list prices.

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Another issue could be in the company’s free cash flow, which declined year-over-year in 2014 and the company’s guidance for 2015 is a little vague.

Third, deferred production costs actually increased sequentially and year-over-year in the fourth quarter. Earlier in April, analysts at Sterne Agee estimated that these costs would grow from about $26.6 billion at the end of 2014 to around $28.5 billion in the second quarter of this year before stabilizing. These costs will not begin to show a decline until the first quarter of next year, according the analysts.

One last thing to look out for is the new orders for the current version of the 777. Boeing needs to take new orders in the range of 40 to 60 per year to keep the production line fully operating and the revenues nicely flowing. The company reported just seven new orders for the 777 in the first quarter. At a list price of $330 million per copy, the 777-300ER is priced higher than either the 787-8 or the 787-9. The new 777X is not due to enter service until 2019, so the current version of this airplane is critical to Boeing.

Boeing is not really in much danger of missing quarterly estimates because the company was careful to manage earnings expectations with its guidance back in January. For the year to date, Boeing is the second-best performer in the Dow Jones Industrials index of 30 stocks, up more than 17%.

The stock traded down about 0.2% in the noon hour on Tuesday, at $152.39 in a 52-week range of $116.32 to $158.83. The consensus price target for the shares is $161.00.

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