The ongoing industrial action by British Airways cabin crew looks set to continue as the union boss in charge of reconciliation talks with the airline jets off on his holidays. As tens of thousands of BA customers face disruption because of the latest set of walkouts, Unite’s joint general secretary, Tony Woodley, was careful to avoid any trouble for himself and his wife, by boarding and easyJet flight bound for Cyprus, according to video footage taken by The News of the World.

Fresh talks set for this week will now be in the hands of joint general secretary, Derek Simpson. However, Mr Simpson has been accused of not taking negotiations seriously after he tweeted details of a meeting as it was being held at Acas two weeks ago. The meeting was then broken up as activists stormed the meeting room hurling insults at BA boss Willie Walsh.

Mr Woodley was also absent from reconciliation talks last month as he was in Cuba celebrating the anniversary of Fidel Castro’s revolution.

A spokesman for Unite said that Mr Woodley was going to be away for a week, on a trip which had been planned a while ago. The spokesman pointed out that if BA needed to talk to someone, Derek Simpson would be available.

BA has announced that it has been able to operate more services than expected, because significant numbers of cabin crew have been crossing picket lines in order to work. The industrial action is estimated to be costing the airline about £7 million per day.