Garmin Flight Deck Reinvents Regional Airliner

As regional airlines prepare for a new generation of aircraft, the cockpit is becoming much more than a place to fly the airplane. It is increasingly shaping operating costs, pilot recruitment, maintenance planning, and even purchasing decisions. That shift is influencing the development of Deutsche Aircraft’s D328eco, where the German manufacturer believes the flight deck will play a central role in defining the aircraft’s appeal to airlines. 

Rather than treating avionics as a standalone system, the company has built the aircraft around Garmin’s G5000 PRIME integrated flight deck, reflecting what it sees as a broader change in regional aviation.

In an exclusive interview with AvBrief ahead of the Farnborough International Airshow, Nils Heuer, Director of Global Sales at Deutsche Aircraft, told AvBrief’s International reporter Jay Mee that the partnership with Garmin has progressed well beyond a supplier relationship and is now fully embedded in the aircraft’s development program

Built Around The Avionics

“Our collaboration with Garmin began in 2021 when we selected the Garmin G5000 integrated flight deck for the D328eco program,” Heuer said. “We are now well advanced in the integration phase, with the avionics suite embedded into the overall aircraft systems design and supporting our development and certification roadmap.”

The next major milestone came at the Paris Air Show last year, where the companies unveiled the Garmin G5000 PRIME flight deck for the D328eco, unveiling the latest generation of Garmin’s turbine-airplane integrated avionics architecture to the regional turboprop program. For Deutsche Aircraft, however, the project represents more than the adoption of new cockpit technology. It reflects a design philosophy that has influenced the aircraft from its earliest stages.

Modern regional aircraft are expected to remain in service for decades, making avionics decisions increasingly important long before an aircraft enters airline operations. According to Heuer, Deutsche Aircraft wanted the cockpit to be developed alongside the aircraft rather than integrated later in the program.

Heuer pointed out that the G5000 PRIME has been a central enabler of the D328eco’s flight deck philosophy rather than a system added late in the design process. “From the outset, we aimed to create a simplified, highly intuitive cockpit that supports modern airline operations while remaining true to the operational DNA of the Dornier 328,” he said. Instead of relying on a large number of conventional switches and standalone displays, the cockpit has been designed around large-format digital displays with a simplified visual layout and standardized pilot workflows.

“The result is a flight deck that prioritizes clarity, situational awareness and ease of use—particularly important in regional operations where crews often operate multiple sectors per day,” Heuer said. That approach reflects a wider trend across commercial aviation as manufacturers seek to simplify cockpit management while giving crews quicker access to operational information during high-workload phases of flight.

Catering to a New Generation of Pilots

Hiring trends have increased pressure on manufacturers to make new aircraft easier to operate and easier to transition into service. Heuer believes avionics now have an important role to play in addressing that challenge.

A key advantage of G5000 PRIME is a certain level of workload reduction through intelligent system integration and automation. “Information that was traditionally distributed across multiple systems is now consolidated, context-aware, and presented when it is most relevant to the crew,” Heuer pointed out. The objective is not to automate decision-making but to reduce the amount of time pilots spend managing aircraft systems, allowing them to focus on flying the aircraft and maintaining situational awareness.

For airlines, that could also shorten transition training. “Standardized symbology, intuitive workflows, and a logical system architecture enable pilots to focus more on flying and operational execution rather than system management,” Heuer explained. He added that younger pilots entering airline service may find the transition particularly straightforward because many have already trained using Garmin avionics during their initial flight instruction.

Heuer said that for operators, this translates into shorter transition training times, particularly for pilots at the beginning of their career with previous experience on Garmin-equipped trainer aircraft. As airlines continue to recruit from a broader pool of pilots, reducing differences between training environments and airline flight decks has become an increasingly important consideration.

Regional Ops and Cockpit Demands

Unlike larger jet aircraft that often operate longer sectors between major airports, regional aircraft (especially in overseas markets) frequently fly multiple short sectors each day into airports with varying weather conditions, shorter runways, and more demanding operating environments. That operational profile has influenced Deutsche Aircraft’s cockpit design.

“Regional operations often involve challenging environments—short runways, complex terrain, variable weather and high sector counts,” Heuer said, noting that the G5000 PRIME is designed to address these operational realities. Among the features highlighted by the company are synthetic vision, enhanced terrain and traffic awareness, and integrated alerting systems (Garmin’s runway awareness feature is worth mentioning) that are designed to provide crews with earlier awareness of developing situations.

Rather than simply generating warnings after an event has developed, the system is intended to help pilots recognize potential hazards earlier during flight planning and execution.

“Importantly, the system architecture supports predictive and preventative safety rather than reactive alerting. This helps crews identify developing situations earlier and manage them more effectively, enhancing overall operational safety margins,” Heuer said.

For regional operators, where aircraft utilization is often high and crews may complete several flights in a single day, reducing workload while improving situational awareness has become an increasingly important part of aircraft design.

The Digitally Connected Airliner

Beyond the flight deck itself, Deutsche Aircraft believes digital connectivity will become one of the defining characteristics of the next generation of regional aircraft. Modern avionics now generate significantly more operational data than previous systems, opening the door to condition-based maintenance, fleet health monitoring, and more efficient maintenance planning. Heuer said those capabilities were a major factor in selecting the Garmin platform.

“The avionics architecture supports extensive data generation and transmission, enabling health monitoring, trend analysis and condition-based maintenance strategies,” he said. Rather than relying solely on scheduled inspections, operators are increasingly using aircraft health data to identify potential issues before they develop into unscheduled maintenance events.

“For operators, this means improved aircraft availability, reduced unscheduled maintenance and more informed decision-making across fleet operations,” Heuer said. “Over the life of the aircraft, these digital capabilities will play an increasingly important role in reducing operating costs and supporting more sustainable operational models.”

The growing use of predictive maintenance has become a common theme across commercial aviation as airlines seek to maximize aircraft utilization while reducing maintenance-related disruptions.

The Certification Hurdle

Integrating a next-generation avionics suite into a new aircraft involves far more than installing new displays and software. For manufacturers, certification requires close coordination between aircraft design, avionics integration, and regulators throughout the development program. Heuer said ensuring that the aircraft’s high level of system integration complies with evolving certification requirements has been one of the program’s most demanding tasks.

“As with any clean-sheet aircraft programme, integrating a next-generation avionics suite requires very close alignment between system design, certification planning and operational requirements,” he said.

He also pointed out that one of the key challenges has been ensuring that the high level of integration and automation fully aligns with evolving certification standards while also meeting airline expectations for reliability and redundancy. According to Heuer, close cooperation between Deutsche Aircraft and Garmin has helped address many of those challenges early in the development process.

Heuer said working groups, early regulator engagement, and a structured development roadmap have enabled Deutsche Aircraft to address complexity proactively rather than reactively. That collaborative approach has become increasingly common across commercial aircraft programs as manufacturers seek to reduce certification risk by involving suppliers and regulators earlier in the design cycle.

Adaptable to Evolving Tech

Regional aircraft often remain in airline service for 25 years or longer, making the ability to accommodate future technology upgrades an increasingly important consideration. Heuer said flexibility was built into the avionics architecture from the outset.

“Future-proofing was a fundamental requirement for the D328eco, and G5000 PRIME’s open and scalable architecture aligns perfectly with that objective,” he said, and pointed out that Garmin’s system is designed to accommodate future software enhancements, additional capabilities, and evolving regulatory requirements without requiring fundamental hardware redesigns.

As air traffic management systems continue to evolve through initiatives such as the FAA’s NextGen program and Europe’s SESAR modernization effort, aircraft manufacturers are placing greater emphasis on software-driven upgrades rather than replacing major hardware components. Heuer believes that approach will allow operators to keep aircraft current throughout their service lives while reducing the cost and complexity of future upgrades.

Looking Beyond Traditional Avionics

The regional aircraft market has changed significantly over the past decade, with operators placing greater emphasis on lifecycle costs, digital capability, and operational flexibility. Heuer believes those priorities are influencing how airlines evaluate flight decks.

“The regional aviation market is becoming increasingly sophisticated, and operators expect flight deck capabilities comparable to those found in larger commercial and business aircraft,” he said. He added that customer response to the D328eco cockpit has been encouraging, particularly among airlines focused on long-term fleet planning.

“Many view the flight deck not simply as an avionics solution, but as an important enabler of safer, more efficient and future-ready operations,” he said.

At the same time, he noted that familiarity with Garmin systems among younger pilots could ease fleet transitions as airlines continue to recruit new flight crews.

Broader Shift Across Commercial Aviation

For Deutsche Aircraft, the partnership with Garmin extends beyond the launch of a single aircraft program. Heuer believes it reflects a broader change in how manufacturers approach cockpit design.

“Success, for us, means delivering a flight deck that exceeds certification requirements, meets operator expectations from day one and continues to evolve throughout the aircraft’s life cycle,” he said.

He argues that aircraft manufacturers are increasingly evaluating avionics not only on technical capability but also on their ability to support connectivity, software evolution and long-term operational value.

“More broadly, this collaboration reflects a shift in how commercial aircraft manufacturers approach avionics—placing greater emphasis on integration, digital capability and lifecycle value rather than simply legacy platform familiarity.”

Whether that trend becomes the norm across regional aviation will depend on airline investment priorities, certification timelines, and the pace of technological change.

What is clear, however, is that cockpit technology is no longer simply supporting the aircraft. It is becoming an increasingly important factor in how manufacturers position new programs and how operators evaluate their next fleet investment.