Airlines told to ban business-class cabins to meet net zero targets
If researchers get their way, economy class could soon be the only option for travellers - getty
For decades, the world’s greatest minds have tried to solve the conundrum of how we can reduce aviation’s carbon impact while keeping planes in the sky.
We’ve heard it all. From sustainable fuels and suborbital flights to simply shaming a generation into flying less. But the answer has been staring us in the face all along. Airlines need to rip out the business-class and first-class seats and make everyone fly cattle class, instead.
Or at least, that is one of the suggestions made in a scientific paper published last week. Let’s see how the argument stacks up.
The end of ‘turning left’?
The study, led by Professor Stefan Gössling of Linnaeus University and published in Nature, analysed 27.5m flights through 2023 to make calculations on how the aviation sector can cut emissions and reach net zero by 2050.
Business-class and first-class seats take up more space, weigh more and are often accompanied by superior dining services (with heavier cutlery) and, sometimes, in-flight bar areas. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), they are up to five times more CO2 intensive than economy-class seats.
With this in mind, the researchers found that scrapping premium seating and maximising an aircraft’s configuration towards economy could reduce emissions by 21.5 per cent to 56.7 per cent, assuming no changes in passenger load factors (PLFs).
Business-class and first-class seats weigh more and take up more space on an aircraft - Alamy
On that note, another recommendation made in the study is to increase PLFs. The average airline filled 78.9 per cent of its seats in 2023, meaning millions of seats were left empty.
Encouraging more efficient aircraft models is a further suggestion to decarbonise aviation.
“Transporting the same number of passengers over the same distances would be possible with less than half the current fuel consumption if airlines only operated the most efficient aircraft models, switched to an all-economy layout, and increased the load factor to 95 per cent,” the authors conclude.
Does the theory stand up?
In 2019, the aviation industry released between 892 and 936 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
This, according to the authors, is “roughly 4 per cent of the world’s net human-driven effective radiative forcing.”
Given aircraft manufacturers’ reluctance to develop hydrogen-electric aircraft, and the slow rollout of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) due to the high production costs, it is reasonable to look to efficiency as an alternative route to decarbonising the industry.
However, when I sent the study to Clive Wratten, CEO of the Business Travel Association, he questioned whether ditching premium seats is the answer.
“The all-economy cabin idea sounds appealing in theory, but history and economics tell a different story. Low-cost carriers have genuinely transformed short-haul aviation: they now carry over 1.3bn passengers globally, representing a third of all seats,” he said.
“Long-haul is fundamentally different. Premium cabins generate disproportionate revenue that cross-subsidises economy fares. Without them, ticket prices would rise and accessibility would fall.”
Wow, Primera Air Scandinavia and Norwegian are examples of carriers that tried (and failed) to bring the all-economy low-cost model to transatlantic routes. Conversely, Delta recently reported that 60 per cent of its total revenue for 2025 came from premium cabins, loyalty programs and non-ticket sources.
“Business travellers need to arrive ready to work effectively; a ten-hour flight in economy certainly isn’t conducive to that,” Wratten adds.
The fallacy of filling up planes
There are also question marks over the rationale behind filling an aircraft to its maximum capacity.
“The myth that all planes should be operating at 100 per cent capacity is misplaced,” says aviation analyst at StrategicAero Research, Saj Ahmad.
“Airlines routinely block out seats so that they can facilitate the carriage of freight and cargo, which can be often more lucrative and better yielding than flying passengers.”
Ahmad also questions the assertion that too many airlines are still flying old aircraft, pointing to the industry-wide phasing out of the older 747-400s and A340s, and the introduction of the more efficient A330s, A350s, 777s and 787s.
Airlines are unlikely to turn their backs on customer demand for business- and first-class cabins - Jeff Greenberg
“Notwithstanding supply chain issues, Airbus and Boeing have steadily, post-pandemic, been ramping up production of their newest planes and getting them into the hands of airlines as quickly as is practicably possible,” he says.
The authors of this paper don’t claim to have found a solution to aviation’s enormous carbon footprint, but rather say “efficiency-based policies have a great potential to curb emissions”. Which they do.
However, no airline will give airtime to any decarbonising measure that rubs against their customer demands. Right now, the mood is shifting towards greater comfort on long-haul flights, not the other way.
So to speak of stripping out premium seats in the name of hitting net zero is, frankly, little more than hot air.
Play The Telegraph’s brilliant range of Puzzles - and feel brighter every day. Train your brain and boost your mood with PlusWord, the Mini Crossword, the fearsome Killer Sudoku and even the classic Cryptic Crossword.
