Hindenburg disaster coming to a prefecture near you!

[emperor]

Passengers peer at Tokyo from the Zeppelin NT airship during a 2-hour test flight Monday. The nation's first sightseeing airship tours are set to start as early as autumn. A ticket to ride will cost between 80,000 and 120,000 yen per person for up to two hours in the air.



via Asahi

[Blah Pete]

80,000 to 120,000 for a two hour ride.....

[Taro Toporific]

80,000 to 120,000 yen for a two hour ride.....

That got me wondering how much it would cost to ride the Goodyear Blimp. It turns out that rides on the Goodyear blimps are available by invitation only. People who get a ride are winners of charity auctions, dignitaries, and occasionally members of the press.
Right now, a Goodyear Blimp ride available for purchase on the Long Beach Libraryfundraising site::neutral:
Opening Bid:, $666.00. Leading Bid:, $1,120.00 Buy Now Price: $7,000.00

[Blah Pete]

If Goodyear, or another blimp operator ran a regular tourist operation in the LB area the bids would probably not be so high. You can get pivate helicopter and small plane tours for less than the buy now or top bid in LB.
Supply and demand. There is only one tourist Zeppelin in Japan so empty your wallet of all those 1-Man notes if you want to ride...

[kurohinge1]

See also Taro-san's earlier thread - Japan buys first new Zeppelin.

I would love to see a Graf Zeppelin-sized airship in my lifetime. It was reported to be 236.53 metres / 776 feet - more than 3 times longer than the Japanese Zeppelin NT.

[FG Lurker]

Opening Bid:, $666.00. Leading Bid:, $1,120.00 Buy Now Price: $7,000.00

That's actually not so bad (comparatively at least!) considering it is for two people...

[IkemenTommy]

80,000 to 120,000 for a two hour ride.....

I can top that amount in 15 min in Kabukicho

[Kanchou]

Wow, that's really horrific... I mean, just how much fuel can a blimp burn in two hours just cruising around the city? And the salaries for two pilots couldn't be all that much, relatively.

I mean, wasn't travel by dirigible relatively affordable back in the day?

I personally think they should bring them back, albeit modernized for faster travel that burns less fuel than aircraft (I would imagine they'd burn less, using reciprocating engines), and can go where trains can't.

[GomiGirl]

I saw that thing the other day - scared the hell outa me.

[Taro Toporific]

... I mean, just how much fuel can a blimp burn in two hours just cruising around the city? And the salaries for two pilots couldn't be all that much, relatively....

It takes 16 fat Americans to handle the lines to land and moor the Goodyear Blimp so the Japanese ground crew must be at least 25.

"1 pilot, 16 ground crew members and 1 public relations manager"---Skytamer.com

LIFT-OFF
[YT]Mg7jWwrYpsw[/YT]

LANDING
[YT]aS9Jakq6ahQ[/YT]

[Kuang_Grade]

The infrastructure costs (it is not like you can fold it up to store it) and limited utilization availability (probably can't be used at night, can't be used when its too windy, or when likely when its raining (not that customers would see that much anyway) are likely some of the reasons why its so expensive. Plus since the capacity is limited to only a handful of people, they probably figure they might as well keep it focused on really motivated customers. On the plus side, they are apparently fairly quiet to operate compared to helicopters, both for passengers and for people on the ground (although, as GG points out, they can be pretty freaky when you see them...this big ass thing just floating there). If you push out the price of those 20 minute helicopter rides in Tokyo to two hours, the pricing is not completely out of whack.