Smaller seats, fee rises and new planes? 2014: The year ahead in air travel

 

 It's unlikely commercial aviation stories in 2014 will surpass those of 2013 for pizzazz or significance.

This is probably a good thing.

Who could have foreseen the three-month grounding of the entire Boeing 787 fleet when we forecast events for 2013?

We were only 16 days into 2013 when 50 787s worldwide were grounded following a battery fire on a Japan Air Lines 787 and a near-fire occurred days later on an ANA 787 flight.

Boeing Co. ended the year with embarrassing, dysfunctional standoff with its largest union, the International Association of Machinists District 751, over where the 777X (successor to the popular 777 airliner now in service) will be built.

In between these bookends were first flights of the Boeing 787-9, Airbus A350 XWB and Bombardier CSeries. The latter was an attempt by the Canadian firm to challenge Airbus and Boeing at the lower end of the mainline jet sector.