[gruundehn]

One problem that I do not see addressed here is that dirigibles could not keep a schedule tighter than a day. Dirigibles were affected by the weather too much and would have to delay mooring while waiting for the weather to calm down enough. Also, headwinds or sidewinds affected them much more than heavier-than-air aircraft so a course from point A to point B would vary in time too much. If you had to be in New York by Wednesday, you flew in a passenger plane or took the train. Or, if coming from Europe, a steamship. A dirigible might get you to New York Wednesday morning, Wednesday afternoon or Thursday. Better forecasting could reduce the variability of flight times, but even today the weather surprises forecasters a lot. The people taking a dirigible would have to be the ones with no time pressures and the cargo would have to be the same. And cargo would have a problem with loading and unloading since all the evidence I have seen is that a dirigible, when "landed" was a higher distance from the ground than an airplane.