Every year thousands of people choose flight travel as their means of transportation to go back home for the Christmas holidays.This year Spanair wanted to wish a Merry Christmas to all the passengers who had chosen their airline so they could continue to feel that Spanair was indeed 'Everyone’s airline'.

On Spanair’s flight JK6474, 173 passengers who were travelling aboard, especially the children, were surprised in midair by Santa Claus. The children flying on the route took the limelight by becoming the first to receive their Christmas presents thanks to a chance encounter with Santa Claus himself aboard the aircraft. In order to convince the children it was really true, Santa Claus, the cabin crew gave each of them a very personalised message and gifts they had actually asked for in their own wish lists.

The parents’ participation was vital to stage this unexpected visit which was recorded live with hidden cameras. The video was then uploaded to the internet and became the airline’s Christmas greeting as well as thousands of other net users’. Since its launch on the 23rd December, the video quickly managed to establish itself as one of the most viewed videos on the Internet, in just 3 days.More than 1m views in just 1 week, reaching more than 50 countries across the globe.#unexpectedvisit was the most tweeted video over Christmas and was shared 100,000 times in less than 24 hours.

On Spanair’s flight JK6474, 173 passengers who were travelling aboard, especially the children, were surprised in mid-air by Santa Claus. Since Santa is a magical character, no one could actually see him but, by means of the cabin crew, he sent each one of them a totally personalised message and a gift from their Christmas wish list.

The parents’ participation was vital to stage the live stunt, which was recorded with hidden cameras. The video was then uploaded to the internet and became the airline’s Christmas greeting as well as thousands of other net users’. It was launched in Spanair's YouTube Channel in English, Spanish and Catalan.

Subsequently, a PR 2.0 strategy was put in motion and included: videoseeding, contacting opinion leaders, bloggers and influencers, video news release and press releases. The video was disseminated, shared and broadcast in media across all channels, maximising the campaign's reach.

The campaign received significant acknowledgement at a personal and corporate level, from the employees and from the media and influencers who received information about the campaign.Over 1,054,000 video views in total of the viral video, of which 60% were viewings in Spanish, in the 72 hours after the video was posted online.Quantitative:• 936,540 viewings of the official video alone on the YouTube channel (updated to 3/05/2012). 466% versus objectives.

• More than 35,200 repercussions of the video in Facebook and Twitter: more than 100,000 times shares in 24 hours.• 2,500 likes in Facebook; 2,384 Tweets.

• #unexpectedvisit was the most tweeted video over Christmas.

• Over 56 publications in blogs and forums covering different themes• Over 205 mentions in the media have been generated of which 90% mentions in international media, and 10% in the national media.• The video reached more than 50 countries across the globe.