A flight captain worked for a branch of an airline company in Jiangsu province was ordered to repay 2.1 million yuan ($346,230) of training costs to the airline when he wanted to resign, Modern Express reported on Tuesday.

Liu Bin (not his real name), the captain, applied to resign in September 2013 and was surprised to find his company considered he was breaking the contract he signed with them. The company asked him to pay compensation of more than 7 million yuan, including initial training costs and subsequent training costs, as well as flight experience costs, depreciation of the training aircraft, fuel and landing fees.

The airline said that pilots who were trained by the company at a cost of more than 600,000 yuan should work for the airline for 35 years, and that Liu's training costs were some 2.1 million yuan.

Liu said he did not know the company had such a rule and he had not signed a contract including such rules.

The Jiangsu labor arbitration department ruled on the case on Monday that Liu should repay 2.1 million yuan in training costs to the airline.