Boeing Co. Chief Project Engineer Michael Sinnett outlined a fix centered on a new design for the lithium-ion battery system that has layers of safeguards to prevent overheating and measures to contain malfunctions.

"We could be back up and going in weeks and not months," Sinnett told reporters at a Tokyo hotel. A third of safety tests have already been completed. A Japanese official said it was possible flights could resume next month.

The 787 fleet was grounded worldwide by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, its counterparts in Japan and other nations in January, following a battery fire in a Dreamliner parked in Boston and an overheated battery that led to an emergency landing of another 787 in Japan.

All Nippon Airways, a major Japanese carrier, was the launch customer for the technologically advanced Dreamliner planes. With Japan Airlines another customer, about half the 787 jets in use are with Japanese carriers.

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Military delegations and civilian groups spend tens of billions of dollars on the hot, big-ticket items displayed in over 105,000 square meters of exhibition space.

And no displays received more interest this year than those of the latest drones.

This year, 107,000 delegates schmoozed at 1,500 stands at the week-long event, which traces its beginnings back to the 1920s. Combining the raw business climate of the global arms market and the excitement of an air show, more than $72 billion in contracts were signed before the trade fair ended.

An as yet undetermined chunk of that was spent on drones, or "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" in the parlance of the arms industry.

"We don't call them drones, because there's always a man in the loop, we prefer UAV or UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems)," said Michael Toscano at a pre-Farnborough conference at Britain's Defense Academy.

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