Finnair was the first airline to fly directly from Western Europe to Beijing, and the route advertisement from 37 years ago has raised some eyebrows this week.
The reason behind this is some racist images shared by Finnish right-wing politicians that need to stir the pot every few months to stay relevant and in the news. These images have reached Asia and have been covered by the media there.
You can access Finnair here.
I am not going to post the racist photos shared by the Finnish politicians, but you can find the Finnair advertisement from 1988 above.
Finnair’s Response:
Recent social media posts by a former Miss Finland and some Finnish politicians have also sparked discussion on our channels. These posts do not represent Finnair’s values. We firmly condemn all forms of discriminatory behaviour.
We are proud to be an international airline with a global customer base, and we remain committed to treating everyone with respect.
At the same time, an advertisement created 37 years ago in connection with the launch of our Beijing route is circulating on social media. Seen through today’s lens, we fully understand why it has raised justified criticism.
It is clear to us that we would not create similar content today. Diversity and equality are a core part of Finnair’s values.
We have also seen AI-generated fake images related to this topic, and we find those fake images distasteful and disrespectful to our international team of 50 nationalities and our global customer community.
Conclusion
The Finnair ad from 1988 is representative of the era, and you can find many other advertisements from the 1980s and later that would not fly today (and are far worse than this).
It is just rregrettablethat these Finnish politicians decided to stir the pot because it has unintended consequences outside of the country and can have a direct impact on businesses that rely on Asian clientele, such as Finnair.
