Deutsche Aircraft opens Leipzig assembly line for D328eco

Deutsche Aircraft has opened a final assembly line for its D328eco regional turboprop at Leipzig-Halle airport, a plant the Sierra Nevada-owned manufacturer describes as the point where the programme moves out of development and into serial production.

The new complex covers 60,500sq m (651,000sq ft). Alongside the assembly line it houses a flight-readiness hangar, a logistics centre and offices, and the company says it can produce up to 48 aircraft a year. The facility was inaugurated on 29 September before an audience of suppliers, prospective customers, journalists and officials from local, state and federal government.

The site is not yet busy. It holds two production jigs and a pair of partly dismantled legacy D328s. Deutsche Aircraft has invested €100 million ($113 million) in the Leipzig plant, which it says brings full aircraft production back to Germany and to Saxony.

The D328eco prototype, powered by Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127XT-S engines, is now expected to fly next year. The aircraft has a longer fuselage and a more modern cockpit than the original D328. Customer production is slated to begin in 2028.

The manufacturer, based in Oberpfaffenhofen, frames the opening against earlier attempts at German commercial aircraft manufacturing: the Baade 152, a 50-seat airliner whose prototype crashed in 1959, and the Fairchild Dornier 728 regional jet, which never reached first flight before its parent filed for bankruptcy in 2002.

The published timetable raises questions about the company's remaining order book, which the source item does not detail.