Training and education · Prestwick, Ayrshire · 2024
Ryanair Training Academy, Prestwick
Interactive classroom displays, projection, video conferencing and the network beneath them, for the £5 million engineering training academy Ryanair opened at Prestwick Airport in October 2024.
Building
Ryanair’s engineering training academy at Glasgow Prestwick Airport, opened 31 October 2024
Client
Ryanair
Scope
Interactive displays, projection, video conferencing, structured cabling and network: design, procurement and installation
Year
2024
The building
Ryanair opened its training academy at Prestwick on 31 October 2024, a £5 million investment that trains the licensed engineers and mechanics who maintain the airline’s fleet, with classrooms, workshops and a training aircraft on site, and 500 jobs attached to it. The teaching rooms had to work from the first day of the first course, for instructors who are engineers rather than AV specialists, and they had to carry on working through a timetable that does not pause.
The brief
Three things. Interactive teaching in every classroom, so that an instructor can annotate, mark up and share rather than talk at a slide. A way to bring instructors and trainees in from Ryanair’s other facilities without a separate system in a separate room. And a network beneath all of it that ties the teaching systems together, is stable under a full building of users, and can be supported afterwards.
What we designed
Interactive displays in every classroom
Each classroom has an interactive touch display sized to the room, so that content is worked on at the front rather than projected onto it. Where a room is used flexibly, the display is on a mobile stand and moves with the layout.
Projection for the larger rooms
The larger classrooms and the lecture area have projection and screens, sized so that every seat sees the material clearly, with automated control so that a session starts with one action rather than a sequence of remotes.
Video conferencing where it is needed
Conferencing systems are installed in the key rooms and integrated with the displays, so a remote instructor or a trainee at another Ryanair site appears on the same screen the room is already using. The result is one way of working across the building rather than a different one in each room.
The network first
We designed and installed the cabling and network for the teaching systems before any display went on a wall. It is the part nobody sees and the part that decides whether the rest is reliable, which is why it was specified and tested as a system in its own right.
On site during the fit-out
What we handed over
Classroom, lecture and meeting-room systems tested room by room, documented, and shown to the people who would teach in them. The academy opened in October 2024 and the systems went into service with it, supporting the engineering and maintenance training Ryanair runs at Prestwick.
Our part was design, procurement and installation, working around the building programme and the other trades so that the technology was in and working before the first intake, not after it.
“The new Ryanair Training Academy AV Solutions at Prestwick is a crucial part of our investment in aviation training and education. Lairds AV delivered the technical excellence we needed to bring our vision to life. The interactive screens, seamless video conferencing, and robust network setup make this facility a standout training centre for our pilots and cabin crew.”
Ryanair Training Team
Systems by room
- Classrooms Interactive touch displays, wall-mounted or on mobile stands
- Larger classrooms and lecture area Projection systems and screens with automated control
- Meeting rooms Video conferencing integrated with the room displays
- Throughout Structured cabling and network for the teaching systems
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Building a training facility?
Classrooms, lecture rooms and the network that joins them are decided on the drawings, alongside the fit-out programme. If a training centre, academy or workplace is being planned, tell us about the building and the opening date and we will design around both.