Deutsche Aircraft Building D328eco Factory in Leipzig for Short-Haul Renaissance

The German aviation industry is making a bold attempt to revitalize the short-haul air travel segment. Construction is starting at Leipzig/Halle Airport for Deutsche Aircraft's final assembly plant, which is to produce the new regional turboprop aircraft D328eco. The machine, accommodating around forty passengers, is a modernization of the proven Dornier 328 design. Its main advantage is claimed to be a significantly lower fuel consumption—by as much as 30%—and a halving of CO2 emissions compared to currently used regional jets, provided Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) are used. The factory is scheduled to be ready to start production in 2027. The investment is a response to profound changes in the aviation market of Western Europe, particularly in Germany. The traditional model of servicing short routes with large, high-capacity jets has become economically unattractive for many airlines. At the same time, as noted by Professor Hartmut Fricke from the Dresden University of Technology, alternative means of transport, such as rail, have struggled with reliability issues in recent years. "Modern regional aircraft could achieve a renaissance in traffic," claims the expert. Deutsche Aircraft's concept assumes that instead of a limited number of flights with large aircraft, numerous direct connections between smaller cities or feeder services to international hub airports will emerge. Sebastian Böhnl, Site Manager at Deutsche Aircraft, confirms: "There is demand for regional aircraft."The German aviation industry has a rich tradition in producing regional passenger aircraft, dating back to companies like Dornier and Fokker. However, in recent decades, this segment has been dominated mainly by Canada's Bombardier and Brazil's Embraer, while European manufacturers focused on larger aircraft (Airbus) or disappeared from the market. The return to regional aircraft production in Germany symbolizes an attempt to reclaim this niche in the era of new challenges, primarily climate-related. A key challenge for the project's future, however, is its sustainable character. For the D328eco to be recognized as a real, more ecological alternative, its operation must be based on SAF. Its future success—whether the new factory in Leipzig contributes to transport decarbonization or merely adds more conventional aircraft to the fleet—will depend on the availability, price, and market acceptance of these fuels. Deutsche Aircraft emphasizes that the aircraft will be ready for 100% SAF flights, aligning with European Union goals in this area. Without this element, the project's ecological advantage would be illusory. Leipzig/Halle Airport, which offered significantly more domestic connections before the COVID-19 pandemic, hopes for a revival thanks to this investment. The factory's location directly adjacent to the runways is intended to facilitate logistics and final testing of the aircraft. The project is met with mixed reactions. On one hand, it is seen as an important boost for the local economy and a step in rebuilding European technological sovereignty in aviation. On the other hand, in the era of the climate crisis, any new venture in the aviation industry sparks controversy and requires solid environmental justification. The success of the D328eco will depend not only on its technical parameters and operating costs but also on broader policies promoting sustainable fuels and on social acceptance for short flights in a new, supposedly greener guise. The Deutsche Aircraft project fits into a broader trend of the aviation industry seeking solutions for emission reduction. While major players like Airbus are working on hydrogen or electric aircraft with a distant implementation horizon, turboprops using SAF are presented as technology available "today." Whether this niche proves large enough to sustain the new factory will be shown in the coming decade. The investment in Leipzig is thus both a return to the roots of German aviation and a bet on the future shape of European regional transport.