The talks give Dubai-based Emirates leverage as it pushes Airbus Group to upgrade its A380 with fuel-efficient engines, said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst at Teal Group. Boeing would gain momentum for a storied jet with few sales prospects aside from replacing the Air Force One fleet, he said. “It would keep the -8I going through the decade and deliver an unpleasant blow to the A380 that’s long overdue,” Aboulafia said of a potential Emirates order.

A similar Pratt engine will power the rival Airbus A320neo, but the risk of the CSeries test failure affecting the Airbus timetable is remote, said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst at the Teal Group, in Fairfax, Virginia. "Given all the testing the engine has been through, the incident is likely to be pretty minor," Aboulafia said. "But given all the headaches of the CSeries, this is another headache Bombardier doesn't need."

The problem is that the Space Launch System program lacks a clear mission, according to Marco Caceres, director of space studies at the Teal Group Corp., a defense industry think tank. “They’ve toyed with lassoing an asteroid and hauling it to the moon, or using it as a vehicle to take people back to the moon, but it’s not clear why” we’re funding SLS, Caceres said.

The political landscape may have changed, however, now that Russia has blocked sales of its Russian RD-180 rockets, which are used to launch U.S. defense satellites. Russia also has announced that it plans to end its operations on the ISS in 2020, effectively disabling the station. “There’s a good chance that SLS will be developed and built, mainly because politically it just looks bad to not be developing your own national launch vehicle and we have to rely on Russia to launch our astronauts,” Caceres said.

The global drone aircraft industry will nearly triple in sales over the next 10 years, good news for London’s Diamond Aircraft. The local manufacturer is partnering with American military giant Northrop Grumman to make aerial surveillance aircraft here, the first likely to roll off the line by year’s end. “It is a growth area. If they are offering manned systems they are low cost and in demand around the world and there is a growing appeal,” said Phil Finnegan, director of corporate analysis at Fairfax, Va.,-based aerospace and defense consultancy Teal Group. “If they add unmanned, it increases the potential.” In 2013, the global surveillance aircraft industry was valued at about $3.1 billion a year. By 2022 that will grow to $8.1 billion, he said.

The FAA approval nevertheless moves airlines an important step closer to tapping the full potential of the Dreamliner, which burns 15 percent less fuel than the Boeing 767. The approval was of little concern to investors, one Wall Street analyst said. Boeing's stock was up 0.4 percent at $134.70. But the approval appeared to come sooner than expected and its timing was seen by some as a sign of continuing tension between the two agencies, one charged with investigating accidents and the other with ensuring safety. "It certainly does seem like there's some conflict between the NTSB and the FAA," said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst at the Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia.