Ryanair has described as bizarre an order by the Employment Appeals Tribunal that a member of their cabin crew, accused of falling asleep and breaching safety procedures during a flight, should be reinstated.
The airline said it would examine the ruling before deciding on an appeal.
The tribunal ruled that Vanessa Redmond, from Dublin, was unfairly dismissed. However, it described her breaches of procedures as serious matters warranting disciplinary sanction.
Ms Redmond joined Ryanair in February 1999 and had reached the rank of senior cabin crew by the time of her dismissal in July 2005. On May 19th, 2005, she was the senior member of a three-person cabin crew on a flight from Dublin to Durham, when, the company claims, she broke procedures, abdicated duties and compromised passenger safety.
Ms Redmond is alleged to have blocked off the first row of passenger seats, sat in the row herself in breach of procedures, read a "fiction-type" of book and fell asleep or appeared to be asleep. The company also claims she failed to carry out security checks and delegated responsibility for vital security code to a junior crew member who started work with the company only days previously.
During the employment appeals tribunal, the cabin crew member strongly denied sleeping during the flight carrying 82 passengers from Dublin to Durham Tees Valley Airport. Although Ms Redmond had admitted blocking off the seats, other Ryanair staff gave evidence that this was the norm.
The tribunal said that evidence that Ms Redmond was sleeping may at a stretch fall short of proving conclusively that she was asleep.
The EAT has ordered Ryanair to re-hire Ms Redmond within the next five weeks.
However, the EAT also ruled that she had failed to carry out security duties. It called these serious matters warranting disciplinary sanction.
But the EAT found that Ryanair's disciplinary process had shortcomings and that she had been denied fair procedure and natural and constitutional justice.
This rendered her dismissal unfair.
Both sides had argued that financial compensation would be the appropriate remedy.