Update, 10:00 PST

We’ve learned that the cancellation is not from the customer we thought, so that one is still pending.

So who’s got 15 orders?

Air China

China Eastern

Dubai Aerospace

S7 Group

Virgin Atlantic

We know it is not Virgin Atlantic. Airfinance Journal reports that it is S7 Group.

10:20 AM PST: We can now add that it is not Dubai Aerospace. James Wallace of The Seattle P-I reports that his sources confirm that S7 is the airline.

Original Post:

Boeing has quietly reported that a customer cancelled orders for 15 787s.

We alluded to this pending cancellation in this post.

The news is on Page 4 of its press release announcing its 2008 fourth quarter and full year earnings. The customer is not identified in the release and Boeing doesn’t update its website until tomorrow (Thursday).

We are pretty sure we know who it is, but have not confirmed it so we’ll not mention names yet. Perhaps Boeing will identify the customer in its earnings call beginning at 10:30 EST.

If we’re correct, the significance goes beyond the quanity of 15 and we’ll explain why when we confirm.