Ten years after Plaxton became part of Alexander Dennis, its factory is on target to produce the biggest volume of vehicles at a group facility and is gearing up for the first of two new coaches coming next year. ALAN MILLAR reports on this and the group’s longer-term ambitions for profitable global growth
Plaxton coaches may account for just 10% of Alexander Dennis’s total production this year, but 10 years after buying the business to reunite the manufacturers rescued from the collapse of TransBus International in 2004, the UK market leader is determined to squeeze every viable opportunity out of the coach business and will add two new products to its range in 2018.
Details of one of these — due for launch next June — remain tightly under wraps, but it has released the first information of the other, designed in close collaboration with Stagecoach, whose chairman Sir Brian Souter also is a major shareholder in Alexander Dennis.
Both new coaches will fill gaps in a range that has been widened greatly since 2007.
If the total coach market looks like a niche for the UK’s biggest bus builder, then the Plaxton strategy is to fill as many niches within that niche as possible with products stretching today …
