Can companies deduct deportation ticket costs from salary?

Dear questioner,

The employer must pay the cost of the air ticket to the worker's home upon resignation or termination of the employment contract (end of service).

However, this only applies if the worker is actually going home, and will not be going to work elsewhere in the UAE, in which case the employer is not obligated to pay the worker's return ticket to his home country, as the worker will not be going home.

Article 131 of the Labor Law states the following:

At the end of the contract, the employer shall bear the costs of returning the worker to the place from which he recruited him or to any other place agreed upon by the two parties. And if the worker joins another employer after the end of his contract, the latter shall be Committed to the worker’s travel expenses at the end of service, and taking into account what was stipulated in the previous clause, if the employer did not deport the worker or did not meet the expenses of his deportation, the competent authorities shall do so at the employer’s expense, and this authority may collect what it spent by way of seizure.