It's time to start watching Boeing's stock price.

As my friends at The Daily Herald in Everett noted this week, the deadline is approaching for another payout from the company's Share Value Trust program. If Boeing share prices are above $54 on June 30, workers will get stock grants, with the size of the grant depending on how high the share price is above the $54 target.

At Wednesday's closing price of $76.30 a share, the payouts would be worth in the neighborhood of $2,000 apiece, according to information Boeing gave The Herald. Not every worker would receive the full amount - the grants are pro-rated based on the amount of time each one has been with the company since the last pay-out in June 2006. But if everybody got the maximum stock grant and they all cashed out their shares, it would mean an infusion of up to $148 million into the state's economy.

If the Boeing stock price climbs, workers would see a bigger payout. (In 2006, each one received about $5,200 through the program.) Likewise, if it falls below $54, there will be no payout. That's happened twice since the company instituted the program in 2000.

So don't start adding those Boeing dollars into your third-quarter projections just yet. There is a very real risk share prices could fall between now and June 30. The Government Accountability Office is scheduled to rule by June 19 on Boeing's appeal of the Pentagon's decision to buy tankers from the EADS/Northrop Gruman joint venture. If Boeing loses its appeal, stock prices are bound to take a hit.

And more bad news, in the form of even greater delays to the 787, could also push share prices down.

There are a couple things to remember, when we talk about the impact of 787 delays:

• It's highly unlikely that any airlines will cancel orders because of the delays; they need the planes, either to push growth in new, high-margin international routes or to replace gas guzzling jets on existing routes, and Airbus can't supply an alternative prior to 2013.
• It is certain that airlines will ask Boeing for compensation, like British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are doing now. But that doesn't mean big cash outlays for Boeing. Reading between the lines, it looks like Virgin would like to take its compensation in the form of steep discounts on the purchase price of even more new jets.
• Even if Boeing does end up paying cash to customers, it won't show up as a big one-time hit to the bottom line - Boeing uses program accounting, which means any late penalties it pays will be spread out over the entire production run.

What's it going to take to get Boeing's stock price (and the worker payout) up? More news like this - Etihad flirting with a huge widebody order, and GE's jet leasing arm looking to buy a bunch of 737s, or even rumors of a nice bit of business with Bangladesh.

Wall Street may not understand the intricacies of redesigning the center wing box (which is a serious proposition, by the way), but multi-billion-dollar orders for aluminum-hulled airplanes would go a long way to cheering the investment community. That in turn would mean a windfall for Boeing workers - and maybe those of us who rely on their paychecks.