New Flyer is a Canadian multinational bus manufacturer, specializing in the production of transit buses. New Flyer is owned by the NFI Group, a holding company for several bus manufacturers. New Flyer has several manufacturing facilities in Canada and the United States that produce the company's main product, the New Flyer Xcelsior family of buses.
This company was formed in 1930 as Western Auto and Truck Body Works Ltd. as a company that primarily sold buses in Western Canada before changing its name to Western Flyer Coach in 1948. Western Flyer Coach was taken over by the Government of Manitoba in 1971, becoming Flyer Industries Limited and was acquired by Dutch-based manufacturer Den Oudsten in 1986, renaming Flyer to New Flyer Industries Limited. KPS Capital acquired New Flyer in 2002, resulting the manufacturer going public in 2005, becoming New Flyer Industries Canada ULC.
New Flyer operates multiple production plants in Winnipeg, Manitoba; which is its main Canadian plant, while it runs three additional American bus production plants under its New Flyer of America subsidiary in Crookston and St. Cloud, Minnesota for customers in the northern United States, and Anniston, Alabama, which was the former production facility of North American Bus Industries, that New Flyer acquired in 2013 and since 2015 for customers serving the southern part of the country.
History
New Flyer was founded by John Coval in 1930 as the Western Auto and Truck Body Works Ltd in Manitoba.