Consider the Hindenburg: Crew: 40 flight officers; 10-12 stewards and cooks. Passengers: 50 sleeping berths (1936); 72 sleeping berths (1937). You can't run a business where you have more crew than passengers.
Furthermore, very few people now have the patience to sit in a wicker chair for two or three days. Space in a dirigible is very cramped.
I once knew someone who rode in the Goodyear blimp. It is so slow that the pilot's chair swivels so he can turn around and chat with the passengers. This causes some consternation the first time people see it. They expect the pilot to keep his eyes on the road.
That would be great. Just a pity that Helium is so expensive and hard to keep inside the balloon. Hydrogen is much cheaper to make. but I'm sure you know how that ended.
The Hindenburg burned because it had been painted with an explosive paint. You can see in the pictures that the fire is quite bright, and witnesses said the flames were yellow. Hydrogen burns with a blue flame, almost invisible.
That is so, witnesses would not have seen the gas burning. The bright yellow flames and thick smoke were from the hull and gas-bag fabrics and their coatings, the engine fuel and everything combustible in the gondola. I think also, a flame played onto aluminium is bright yellow - the air-frame was almost entirely of aluminium alloy. The primary fire that set them burning, was still of the hydrogen, though it remains impossible to know what ignited it.
I don't know if you've seen the infamous news-reel film of the Hindendburg's loss - not just the familiar footage of the fire. It starts about 2 or 3 minutes prior to the fire, and shows the airship in obvious difficulty as it approached the mooring-mast. It was pitching badly, more so sternwards, with a heavy stream of ballast water being discharged near the bow. That combination suggests a severe hydrogen leak somewhere aft with a lot of the gas escaping completely hence the evident, consequent loss of buoyancy; until something ignited it within the hull.
The Goodyear blimp was at an airport east of Atlanta and I stopped to watch it land. The approach was down a hill with stores at the top. The blimp had rather noisy bearings. So this is appearing above the stores and the only way I'm sure it's moving is that I can hear the bearings grinding. Slo-o-o-wly it creeps over the stores. A gust of wind knocks it down. The nose comes up and the props go into high power. Now it's "GRIND GRIND GRIND!" Slo-o-o-wly it gains altitude so it misses the stores, then the nose comes down again to point into the landing spot and the props throttle back to a more peaceful grind. Slo-o-o-wly it slides toward the ground. Then about two dozen young men run out and grab ropes dangling from the blimp. A gust of wind tilts the nose up and half the landing crew is dangling above the tarmac. But gravity wins in the end, and the ship is wrestled to a landing.
JakobA the unAmerican. 