Deutsche Aircraft has opened its new final assembly line for the D328eco at Leipzig/Halle Airport, with capacity to produce up to 48 regional turboprops per year.
The €100 million (US$117 million) facility will produce a modernized and stretched version of the Dornier 328, a 1990s design updated with new engines, avionics and capacity for up to 40 passengers. The site is expected to employ around 250 people at full production.
The 60,500-square-meter complex includes the final assembly line, a flight-readiness hangar, logistics facilities and the company's administrative headquarters. Leipzig will also handle customer deliveries, while engineering, certification and flight testing remain centered at Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich.
The industrial schedule has slipped again. Deutsche Aircraft said in November 2025 that production of the first D328eco in Leipzig would begin in early 2026. The first aircraft assembled at the new plant is now expected to be completed only in the first quarter of 2027, with serial production scheduled to start in 2028.
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The new timetable also raises questions over the D328eco’s entry-into-service target. Deutsche Aircraft postponed EIS to the fourth quarter of 2027 in 2024 and maintained that target last year, even after the prototype’s maiden flight slipped from 2025 to 2026. A 2028 start for serial production would leave little room for customer deliveries under the previous schedule.
Evolution of Dornier 328
Despite its new production system and extensive technical changes, the D328eco is not a clean-sheet aircraft. Deutsche Aircraft describes it as an advanced evolution of the Dornier 328 turboprop developed in the 1980s and introduced into airline service in the 1990s.
The fuselage has been stretched by around two meters, increasing capacity from 30 to as many as 40 passengers. The aircraft retains the basic configuration and operational characteristics of the original D328 while introducing current-generation engines, avionics and systems.
Power comes from two Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127XT-S turboprops, a variant of the PW100 family that also powers current ATR aircraft. Deutsche Aircraft says the combination of the new engines and changes to the aircraft can reduce fuel consumption per seat by up to 14% compared with the original D328 while providing 25% more passenger capacity.
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September 29, 2026
September 29, 2026
The cockpit uses Garmin's Companion avionics suite, replacing systems designed more than three decades ago. Deutsche Aircraft has also retained the D328's emphasis on short-field performance and operations from airports with limited infrastructure.
The first D328eco test aircraft, TAC 1, was rolled out at Oberpfaffenhofen in May 2025. Development work has continued with testbeds based on existing D328s, including an aircraft that began flying a new landing gear system in August.
Rare alternative to ATR
The D328eco will enter a regional turboprop market with considerably fewer manufacturers than when the original Dornier 328 appeared.
Bombardier ended production of the Dash 8-400 in 2021, while Saab and Fokker left regional aircraft manufacturing decades ago. ATR is consequently the dominant Western manufacturer of new regional turboprops, with the 50-seat ATR 42-600 and larger ATR 72-600.
With up to 40 seats, the D328eco is positioned below the ATR 42-600 rather than directly against the more widely used ATR 72-600. Deutsche Aircraft is targeting routes where the economics of a larger aircraft may be difficult to support, as well as operations involving short or unpaved runways and remote communities.
The relatively small capacity is also one of the commercial challenges facing the program. Airlines have increasingly moved toward larger regional aircraft, and sales of the ATR 42 are substantially lower than those of the 70-seat ATR 72.
Deutsche Aircraft nevertheless sees a replacement market among operators of older turboprops, particularly Dornier 328s and smaller Dash 8 variants that no longer have direct new-production successors.
Private Wings became the first announced customer in 2023 with a letter of intent for five aircraft. The German operator already flies Dornier 328s, but Deutsche Aircraft has yet to build a large commercial backlog comparable with established regional aircraft programs.
