“They had to work all night to mitigate the consequences of the strike and there were nearly no consequences for the passengers,” Markus Wahl, a spokesman for the German union, Vereinigung Cockpit, said on Friday. “It was a win-win situation; we hit the company without hitting the passengers.”

The strike came on the heels of an agreement by the company last week to change its longstanding position and recognize pilots’ unions for the first time. Ryanair’s announcement was seen as an indication that it would have to grapple with the same labor costs and issues as its legacy competitors.

But the union said the company appeared to be paying lip service to having a union but was not interested in serious negotiations. Further talks with Ryanair management were canceled, the union said, because the airline rejected the inclusion of two people on the council representing pilots in the negotiations.

On Thursday, the union called for the strike in Germany from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. Friday local time.

“Ryanair’s public offer to conduct negotiations with V.C. can only be classified as a further publicity stunt,” Ingolf Schumacher, the head of the union’s industrial department, said in a statement. “Ryanair is trying to win time and attempting to delay the beginning of collective bargaining.”

Ryanair said it had objected to having a contract pilot, who had not flown with the company for 15 months and was in litigation with the company, at the union talks. The union said this pilot had been fired two days after he publicly said he was a member of the union’s negotiating team and was taking this to court.