British Airways Plc and officials from the Unite trade union plan further talks later on Tuesday to try to resolve a dispute with cabin crew staging the latest in a series of strikes.

Cabin crew began a second five-day strike on Sunday, coinciding with a week of school holidays, after talks between Unite and the airline failed to reach agreement last week.

Another five-day strike, stemming from a long-running dispute over the airline's cost-cutting drive and staffing levels, is due to start on June 5, less than a week before the start of the soccer World Cup in South Africa.

There is a meeting today with BA, later this afternoon, a spokesman for Unite said.

He gave no further details. Unite joint general secretary Tony Woodley was expected to attend, having left the union's policy conference in Manchester.

Mediation service Acas said it would host the talks at an undisclosed location after left-wing protesters disrupted a previous round of talks.

BA said it had been operating 70 percent of long-haul flights from London Heathrow and 55 percent of short-haul services from the airport during the latest strike. Flights out of London Gatwick and City airports were unaffected.

In a subsequent statement, BA said it planned to increase that to more than 80 percent of long-haul flights from Heathrow if next week's strike goes ahead, and 60 percent of short-haul flights.

With the World Cup in mind, BA said it would fly a full schedule to South Africa.

Unite has said it could hold a further ballot for strike action during the peak summer holiday months of July and August.

The stoppages have happened at a difficult time for the airline and come on top of seven days of walkouts in March that cost BA 43 million pounds ($63 million).

Last month, BA reported a second straight year of record losses and it is battling a global economic downturn and industry-wide recession as well as disruption caused by volcanic ash drifting over Europe from Iceland.

Both sides in the dispute have claimed that a deal over pay and cuts to staffing levels and travel was not too far away but have blamed each other for the lack of progress.

(Reporting by Keith Weir, editing by Will Waterman and Michael Shields)

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