Is business class necessary on short-haul flights?

Is business class an excess we can do without on short-haul flights? 

It often seems absurd to me to see all those empty business class eats between, say Hobart and Melbourne, or Sydney and Brisbane. 

Now a European airline honcho has called for business class to be banned on short haul flights to reduce the carbon footprint of aviation.

Jozsef Varadi, chief executive officer and co-founder of Budapest-based Wizz Air, is calling for the industry to eliminate business class on flights under five hours, TravelMole reports.

"Business class should be banned," he said. "These passengers account for twice the carbon footprint of an economy passenger, and the industry is guilty of preserving an inefficient and archaic model," he said.

"A rethink is long overdue, and we call on fellow airlines to commit to a total ban on business class travel for any flight under five hours."

Wizz Air claims it currently operates at the lowest CO2 emissions per passenger and expects to reduce this by 30% for every passenger in the next 10 years.

Varadi said: "While it's a step in the right direction, we still have a very long way to go. The industry as a whole needs to be more aggressive in its ambitions if we are truly to make a difference."