A few lucky kids got a chance to meet Santa in mid-air last Wednesday on their way to the North Pole.

The Children’s Wish Foundation and Air Transat partnered to take 100 youngsters, all of them battling life-threatening disease, with their families on a flight to the North Pole in search of the jolly old elf.

Cruising at 8,000 metres (roughly 26,000 feet), Santa arrived with a little bump, to greet a plane full of wide-eyed kids.

“Today is all about the kids, an opportunity to enjoy the holiday season. Get away from the usual hospital visits, doctors appointments and really just get to be a kid,” Tiffany MadDonald from the Children’s Wish Foundation.

The charity, whose mission it is to grant the favourite wishof a child diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, has partnered with Air Transat for this flight since 2004.

In the first 12 years, they’ve raised over $5 million — and Air Transat contributed another $99,000 to the Children’s Wish on this year’s flight.

—Dave Abel