High five to Air Canada for its Christmas stunt

Good PR

Flying home for Christmas

Airline Christmas PR stunts seem to be as anticipated these days as the John Lewis advert over the festive period, so I was pleased to see Air Canada having a go at spreading some Christmas cheer this year.

It hasn’t been plane sailing (see what I did there?) for the airline in 2014, following the cockpit porn discoveries and the backlash to checked baggage fees that were introduced, but this latest PR move has made all of that fade into the background.

In a similar video-based stunt to WestJet’s Christmas Miracle last year, where the airline played Santa and surprised passengers with gifts they’d asked for on the baggage carousel, Air Canada gave some unsuspecting Canadians something to make them feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

The Maple Leaf pub in London is a place where many Canadian expats living in the capital go to meet, drink and socialise. Two men dressed as airline pilots entered the busy bar and rang the last orders bell to get everyone’s attention; after which they announced they’d like to buy the bar a round. Queue the cheers and applause. Who doesn’t love a free drink?

Only, that wasn’t the kind of round the “pilots” had meant. They went on to explain that they wanted to get everyone in the pub “round trip tickets to go back to Canada for the holiday season”. In the video, you can see the shocked and delighted reactions of the people in the pub; many of whom didn’t expect to be able to go home for Christmas (shown earlier in the video).

The video ends with the message “Every year Air Canada sends thousands of Canadians home for the holidays ... This year we wanted to bring a few more.” N’awwwwwww.

Feel Christmassy yet? Watch the video and you just might ...

Shannon Haigh, 10 Yetis, @ShazzaYeti on Twitter

Seen any good or bad PR recently, you know what to do, @10Yetis on Twitter or andy@10yetis.co.uk on email.