Boeing Dreamliner Update: FAA Chief Says 'There Is No Timetable For Fixes' [VIDEO] : News : TravelersToday

With more plot twists than a Steven Spielberg thriller, Boeing's Dreamliner has found its way back in the news.

Michael Huerta, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, said, according to USA Today, that the agency is engaged in serious discussions with Boeing about how to remedy problems with the 787 Dreamliner's lithium-ion batteries.

Refusing to set a definite timetable on when the plane would be back in the air after a Jan. 16 order grounding the fleet, due to "the need to identify a cause for battery fires in two planes and the need for Boeing to develop a remedy that protects against future problems."

Huerta's comments come after The Wall Street Journal wrote in a Tuesday evening report that the FAA could give Boeing "the green light for airborne tests of proposed lithium-ion battery fixes for its 787 Dreamliner as early as next week."

However, the newspaper cited no named sources, reported USA Today, saying it got its information from "people familiar with the details." Additionally, the Journal report said that even if the FAA does move next week, "actual test flights aren't likely to come that quickly."

All Nippon Airways, owner of the plane that needed to make an emergency landing in Japan because of a smoldering battery, claims to have found that, at least in this one case, that eight cells in the lithium-ion battery placed in the Dreamliner overheated and encountered signs of "short-circuiting and "thermal runaway," a chemical reaction in which rising temperature causes progressively hotter temperatures.

Even with this issue, Boeing still asked and received FAA permission, on Feb. 11, to air test their Dreamliner.

However, the damage has already been done with most airlines that have Dreamliners removing them from their flight schedules through the end of spring. One carrier, Polish carrier LOT, has taken the Dreamliner out of its schedules through October.