It was a relatively ambitious bid to develop a group of aircraft that would have seated between 50 and 110 passengers, supplementing the existing 328JET series, a smaller regional jet. The 728/928 family is a monoplane design with fixed wings in low wing configuration and two engines mounted under the wings. It has a retractable undercarriage (or landing gear) in tricycle configuration. On 21 March 2002, the roll-out of the first 728 took place. The company planned its maiden flight to occur during the summer of 2002 and for deliveries to commence during mid-2003 to the launch customer Lufthansa Cityline.