A New Flyer bus is pictured during a recent trade show in Montreal.

NFI Group officials say they are poised for a comeback after mounting losses continued in 2022.

The owner of the New Flyer plant in Jamestown posted fourth quarter losses of $150 million, bringing its total losses in 2022 to $278 million. Paul Soubry, NFI Group president and CEO, said there is good news behind the net losses — orders increased 23% from 2021 levels, the company’s backlog grew by 9% compared to 2021 and 2023 revenues are expected to reach between $2.5 and $2.8 billion before increasing again in 2024 to between $3.2 and $3.6 billion — or roughly what the company’s revenue was before the COVID–19 pandemic.

“I hope that from the discussions you’ve heard this morning, it’s clear to everyone that while the past couple of years have been challenging our future is bright,” Soubry said in a conference call with investor analysts. “No one could have predicted the disruption and headwinds that we saw in 2020 to 2022 and while the world remains volatile, we have seen signs of improvement and the path ahead has become clearer.”

NFI Group officials have spoken candidly about supply chain issues and the impact they have had on business over the past two years. Soubry showed slides during the conference call presentation showing how an inability to get materials limited production over the past year. Line entries should be about 1,500 units a quarter, which they were in 2019 before the pandemic. In 2022, line entries hit a low of 714 units during the fourth quarter of 2022.

That led the company to find new suppliers, worked to increase inventory, sought pricing adjustments and customer deposits or prepayments when possible. The company also closed 25 facilities and cut more than 2,000 positions companywide.

“These were extremely difficult people decisions that impacted our teams,” Soubry said. “We defend our decision not to cut deeper, as if we were to shutter additional facilities or do even more significant layoffs, there is a high likelihood that we would not be able to recruit the staffing levels required for our recovery. We also would not have been able to deliver significant new order wins and backlog growth.”

Soubry said new vehicle production rates will remain lower through the first six months of 2023 while supply chains improve before ramping up production in the second half of the year. In 2022 NFI launched three new electric vehicle models with the Alexander Dennis E100EV bus battery platform for North America launching in 2023.

And, Soubry said the company anticipates the $1 trillion federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act benefitting NFI Group as it bids on contracts for low-emissions buses paid for with the federal dollars. In 2022 New Flyer supported applications for almost $200 million in federally funded grants for 15 U.S. transit agencies.

“The IIJA has already started to drive significant order activity and is the primary factor that supports our view that the market will recover to deliver between 6,000 and 6,500 units per year, as we move through the funding period, with a higher percentage coming from higher margin battery- and fuel cell-electric buses,” Soubry said.