UNITE accused British Airways yesterday of making “misleading statements” to the media — despite promising to put an embargo on comments on cabin crew strikes.

Both sides agreed to the embargo while negotiations to resolve the dispute over pay were underway, however, the airline broke the embargo and issued a statement quoting “misleading pay figures” in a bid to undermine any industrial action.

Unite members in the “mixed fleet” cabin crew who joined since 2010 earn less than existing employees, and voted by 79 per cent for strike action after rejecting a pay offer, and are set to walk out on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey branded it “deeply disappointing” that British Airways broke the embargo with “misleading commentary to the media” while negotiations were ongoing.

Mr McCluskey said: “Unite is focused on trying to achieve a negotiated outcome for our members many of whom are young men and woman who have been under paid for years.”

Unite argue that they have been raising the issue of “mixed fleet” cabin crew pay for a number of months, but that British Airways has “refused to listen.”

BA released a statement yesterday claiming that starting salary for full time cabin crew was £21,000, a figure disputed by Unite.

The union argues that new entrants to the mixed fleet are paid a basic salary of £12,192 a year, and that the food allowance pilots receive is 15 per cent more than that of the workers who make up the mixed fleet cabin crew. The union have warned that this “poverty pay” has led to cabin crew members working in other jobs and sleeping in their cars between shifts to make ends meet.

Mr McCluskey said “our young members deserve credit for standing up for themselves against a corporate giant such as British Airways in their fight for a living wage,” adding “they are entitled to have aspirations and entitled to have a decent standard of living.”

He called on BA to “drop its aggressive stance, to stop with the misleading commentary and genuinely negotiate. That is the only way to reach a resolution to this dispute.”