If it's true then it appears that BA have decided it is no longer necessary to keep up the pretense. Up until now BA has continued to entertain Unite at ACAS talks to keep up the appearance of being the good guy and taking every opportunity to negotiate even though it knew it could never actually settle until BASSA's current leadership had been crushed (TW never realised he was being set-up by both sides) - otherwise BASSA would just keep kicking-up again and again.
Now BA sees no merit in continuing to appear to be wearing the white hat and being the professionally reasonable and extremely tolerant party in the face of blatant childishness and abuse.
Could be signalling the start of no more Mr. Nice Guy - at long last!
Though when strike dates were called earlier this year after the 2nd ballot, BA immediately pulled the offer that was on the table. So this may not be a sign of a change in direction. From BA's perspective, they need to know the ballot result to understand the strength of the union's position (though we know that ballot results and cc walking out are two different things entirely).