In a ruling published last week, the Employment Appeals Tribunal ordered the airline to pay aircraft engineer, Alan Downey of Naas, Co Kildare, 3,336 in compensation after it left him without any wages for his final spell with the airline.

Ryanair solicitors argued at the tribunal that Downey's signed contract included a clause which allowed Ryanair to recoup training costs of 5,000 if he left the company within two years of the training course.

Downey left within 18 months but told the company that he had "no intention" of repaying the money. But the airline deducted the money from his final wages.

The tribunal said, however, that just because an employee agrees to repay a loan does not entitle the employer to deduct repayments from the employee's wages.

The tribunal said that Ryanair had also breached the Payment of Wages Act by failing to give Downey one week's notice of the deduction.

Ryanair was also in the High Court last week trying to stop 60 of its pilots from having the Impact trade union negotiate wages and conditions on their behalf.

The pilots claimed that the airline had threatened the pilots that if it was forced to engage with the union within five years, then the pilots too would have to repay the 15,000 cost of training them in on new planes.