Ranking as one of the latest strikes to affect Europe’s largest economy, around 5,000 employees of the Lufthansa AG, Germany's biggest airline, walked off the job Monday in an attempt to obtain 9.8 percent more pay.

Ground staff and flight crews walked out at 2200 GMT Sunday after members of the Ver.di service sector union conducted a staggering vote last week in favor of a strike.

Airports of Hamburg and Frankfurt were the main targets of the Ver.di union, but personnel of other airports, like Munich, took part. The action centered initially on Lufthansa’s technical and catering divisions.

The airline said flights were not seriously hit by the strike in its early hours.

"Lufthansa is still counting on regular flight operations and will inform on www.lufthansa.com should irregularities occur," it said in a statement. "Lufthansa has taken measures to minimize the impact on its passengers."

In its attempt to decrease the impact on passengers, the airline came up with an emergency plan involving German railway operator Deutsche Bahn. Saying they are well prepared to take care of extra demand, Deutsche Bahn responded promptly by allowing Lufthansa to draft additional staff.

Even if the resulting flight cancellations were just a few on Monday, the union said the longer it lasts, the bigger the strike’s impact would become.

"There's no question that it will be felt," Ver.di chief negotiator and leader Erhard Ott told German television.

"We want to begin by concentrating on technical services such as aircraft maintenance, and after that other parts of the company will be drawn in," Erhard Ott said, as quoted by the Financial Times Deutschland newspaper.

Ott said he was satisfied, in spite of the lack of cancelled flights, because the union wanted to go after Lufthansa rather than its passengers. Hiring additional temporary staff to maintain its flights going would result in heavy costs for the airline, Ott added.

The union demands 9.8 percent more pay for around 50,000 ground workers and cabin crew over a period of 12 months, while Lufthansa has made an offer of 6.7 percent for a 21-month period and an extra one-off payment.

Ver.di estimated that the strike would cost Lufthansa €5 million ($7.9 million) a day, as quoted by the newspaper “Die Welt”. The German airline company transports an average of 150,000 people daily, and July is one of its busiest months.

According to Wolfgang Mayrhuber, Lufthansa Chief Executive, the air carrier cannot afford more than its latest offer. However, unions contradict him saying that Lufthansa is well-positioned to provide the pay hike given that it gained an operating profit last year of €1.38 billion, a figure it expects to reach again the current year.

Lufthansa has been able to reach its objectives in spite of the growing competition among carriers and escalating jet fuel prices.

The airline is also involved in separate talks with the Cockpit trade union, which represents pilots at its CityLine and Eurowings subsidiaries. Last week’s warning strikes by pilots led to forced cancellation of around 1,000 flights by those carriers.