Aviation Action, which was formed in May, reached its £10,000 goal within just eight days of its 31-day Run the Runways virtual challenge.

The challenge sees a team of more than 450 people virtually running or walking a different airport runway each day and it reached the £10,000 mark after virtually completing a run of Newcastle airport’s runway.

Aviation Action is raising the money to enable it to offer help and support to aviation workers “experiencing challenges” since the start of the pandemic.

Chris Wild, the charity’s founder, said, “We couldn’t be more grateful to the team of people who have been running and walking the runways since the start of December.

“We know that getting people out into the fresh air each day can have a positive impact on your wellbeing and mental health so it is great to see so many people getting involved.

“Reaching our target so early in the campaign has been amazing and as a result we have made the decision to increase it to £15,000 which will allow us to create mental health collateral specifically for the aviation industry and distribute this to all of the airports that we have virtually visited in December.” 

Wild is promising to physically run the runway at Leeds Bradford airport dressed as Santa on 17 December if the new target is reached by then.