When the Airbus A380 was delayed two years, everyone from airplane geeks to airlines and Boeing wondered what kind of penalties Airbus would have to pay. Australia’s Qantas, apparently from a regulatory filing, revealed at the time that it received A$104 million (about US$84 million at the exchange rate at the time).

Now comes a new piece of information from Qantas via The Herald Sun. In a story dated April 16 (it’s already tomorrow there), The Sun writes, “Qantas sources said only that the amount will be will in excess of the $200 million Airbus paid after it pushed back by two years the delivery to Qantas.”

Note the amount is double what originally was reported. The story goes on:

“‘If you look at the size of the Boeing order against the 12 planes that Airbus delayed, you get some idea of how much Boeing will have to pay,’ a senior airline source [said].”

At A$100m, this suggests Boeing’s penalty for the 65 contracted 787s is more than A$540 million. Double the Airbus penalty and this suggests Boeing’s penalty to Qantas alone is north of A$1 billion. At list prices, the Qantas order is worth more than $11 billion, but figure hefty discounts because Qantas was an early customer.

If the penalties are north of A$1 billion–and this may or may not be a big if–then the penalties suggested by a host of Wall Street aerospace analysts are way under the mark. Their estimates range from $800 million to a high of $1 billion (USD), as we reported in our Corporate website update this today.

The Qantas number, whatever it is, is food for thought, and the first tangible indication, however vague, of the penalties facing Boeing.