New Flyer opens new parts-manufacturing plant in New York

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This article was published 28/01/2017 (3517 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

New Flyer Industries Inc. has opened a new parts-manufacturing operation in western New York to further bolster the company’s relationship with transit authorities across the state.

The 40,000-square-foot facility in Jamestown, N.Y., will make parts for up to 10 New Flyer buses per week, which will then be assembled at New Flyer transit bus production facilities in St. Cloud, Minn.

New Flyer has signed a five-year lease on the commercial building, with options to extend to 15 years. The facility is now fully operational and is expected to create 40 new local jobs.

In addition to parts for the New Flyer transit buses, the company is exploring the possibility of making parts for coaches made by its subsidiary Motor Coach Industries (MCI).

In a research note to investors, Chris Murray, managing director of AltaCorp Capital, said, “While the new facility further supports New Flyer’s compliance with Buy America rules, it also positions the company well to bid on further contracts from other New York State Transit Authorities including for motorcoaches, where a bid is expected this year.”

Over the past two decades, New Flyer has delivered or has on order more than 2,200 transit buses with the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

CEO Paul Soubry said, “Both New Flyer and MCI sell to New York state public transit agencies. The larger agencies will buy sometimes using the Federal Transit Administration program (where 80 per cent of the funding comes from the U.S. federal government) which requires compliance with Buy American. Other times they will buy using New York State funds (which allows them to have New York state content as part of the selection criteria). So having a local New York facility helps our competitiveness.”

With its headquarters and main production operations for both New Flyer transit buses and MCI’s motor coaches in Winnipeg, in addition to St. Cloud, New Flyer also has U.S. transit bus-manufacturing locations in Crookston, Minn., and Anniston, Ala., as well as a parts-fabrication operation in Elkhart, Ind., a completion and service centre in Ontario, Calif., and a service centre in Renton, Wash.

Its MCI operation also has a number of U.S. facilities: a shell-completion plant in Pembina, N.D., and service centres in Blackwood, N.J., Winter Garden, Fla., Des Plaines, Ill., Dallas, Texas and Los Alamitos, Calif.

New Flyer also has a service centre in Arnprior, Ont., and MCI has a service centre in Montreal.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca