Finnair to re-paint Marimekko livery A330 due to copyright violation

Finnair will be re-painting its Airbus A330 OH-LTM with the blue-forest livery based on the Marimekko print Metsänväki (“Forest Folk”), unveiled earlier this month. Read the story here.

As per the airline

We introduced the Marimekko livery with the Metsänväki (Forest folk) print on May 7, as a part of our cooperation with the Finnish design house Marimekko. On May 29th, Ms Kristina Isola, who was the designer of the Marimekko pattern we used in our Airbus 330, admitted that she had used the original work of an Ukrainian artist Maria Primatshenko as the basis of her design. Ms Isola apologized for this and said she regretted it deeply. The news came as a surprise to both Finnair and Marimekko, who had introduced the pattern to their selection of designs in 2008. Ms Isola has worked for Marimekko for decades.

Finnair immediately took action and we had the pattern removed from our aircraft, as we take intellectual property rights very seriously.

The airline also has an Airbus A340 painted with the Marimekko designed Unikko (poppy) print, and will continue to use it.

Finnair will also continue its cooperation with the Finnish design house and use tableware and blankets, specially designed for it, by Marimekko.

Our cooperation with Marimekko continues, and we have introduced the tableware designed by Marimekko especially for Finnair use into our aircraft in mid May, and one of our Airbus 340s is painted with the iconic Unikko (poppy) pattern by Marimekko. The case with the other print used in the aircraft was very unfortunate, but it does not impact the good cooperation we have with Marimekko.