For relatively short flights, particularly on domestic routes without border controls, the fact that they don't operate out of mainstream airports and can therefore keep the time down between booking in and departure means that they can roughly compete on journey times.
The incident on landing in the tests, it has to be recalled, is the second attempt to dock a new aircraft, and the incident was relatively minor and didn't involve anyone being injured. By the time any commercial flights start the pilots will have undergone many, many more hours of practice learning the behaviours of both the aircraft and the airfields.
I'm intrigued, my company has to send people to Northern Ireland on a semi-regular basis, and I can see me taking in visits to clients in the northwest, hopping over to Belfast on the blimp and then coming back to the south coast on a more conventional flight as a round trip.
O.
