[United857]

In most European airlines short haul business class is just economy seats with the middle blocked off and slightly better food.

This means they can dynamically adjust the size of business class on a per flight basis. So "a huge business class cabin" is misleading here.

[lukeschlather]

You're directly saying that business class seats on these flights take 150% more space than economy class. I think you're trying to argue that it's not actually as comfortable as business class, but the objectionable thing about business class is not that people are more comfortable, it's the wasted space. And the wasted space seems equivalent.

I'm not looking for asceticism here, my hope is to minimize pollution. Of course, a bus would probably allow 200%-300% the space for less pollution and similar travel time.