The Spanish Air Nostrum Group believes that airships will again play a major role in scheduled transport. Some time ago, ten units were ordered from Hybrid Air Vehicles and the order has now doubled to 20 units.

In June last year, the two companies reached an agreement on completed the delivery of ten Airlander 10s. These are airships that are said to be able to carry around 100 passengers. At that time, Air Nostrum announced that it wanted to use this as a “climate-friendly alternative” primarily in domestic Spanish traffic. In the future, airships would also be used between the mainland and islands such as Palma de Mallorca.

Air Nostrum is so far the only airline that has publicly announced that it wants to use airships on a large scale. If you consider that in the “golden era of the Zeppelins” only a few examples were ever in regular service, now 20 examples are definitely an indication that people firmly believe in the success of these aircraft.

Since the Air Nostrum Group also has a branch in Malta, Mel Air, it is obvious that they would like to expand there too. Specifically, it was announced that the ten additional airships would be deployed from Malta. The aim is to use these to serve short routes such as to Sicily or North Africa.

One can also imagine that Mel Air operates the Luqa-Gozo heliport could reactivate. In any case, there is enough space, because the GZM has a mini airstrip and there are even mobile masts on the market. For example, special trucks with integrated airship masts are available from Luftschiffbau Zeppelin in Friedrichshafen. In any case, it will not fail because of that.

Malta government wants to reactivate Gozo flights

According to its own information, Air Nostrum has held initial discussions with the Maltese government. There is a good reason for this, as you probably don't want to operate the inner-Maltese route “free of charge”. The Maltese Ministry of Transport is currently preparing a PSO tender for Luqa-Gozo Heliport. This has the special feature that it must be an electric aircraft. Politicians also imagine that drones could also be used. Air Nostrum is now going on the offensive and wants to market its own idea of ​​using airships to the public in order to have a good chance of winning the tender.

Anyone who thinks that Malta is small anyway and that no flights are necessary because of a few kilometers has no idea of ​​the local conditions. The journey from Luqa to Gozo is very time consuming by land and sea and is a major reason why far fewer tourists come to Gozo for their holidays than to the 'main island' of Malta. Of course, Air Nostrum also thinks one step further, because airships fascinate many people and, purely out of sheer interest, being able to drive a “Zeppelin” at least once, some could definitely come here specifically for this purpose.

With the larger order, the airline group, which also includes Hibernian Airlines (HG, Dublin International) and Mel Air (5M, Malta International), wants to expand its Airlander network from Spain to the Mediterranean region, including Malta. Under the original agreement announced in June 2022, Air Nostrum Group had ordered ten of the 100-passenger airships.

The Hindenburg disaster marked the beginning of the end for Zeppelins in regular service

The golden era of airships came to an abrupt end with the tragic accident of the D-LZ129 “Hindenburg”. Since then, aircraft have only had a niche existence in the area of ​​advertising media and for tours. Airships, especially rigid airships, were never able to establish themselves again in scheduled transport.

The fact that this Zeppelin, like all its predecessors, used combustible hydrogen as lifting gas contributed significantly to the Hindenburg tragedy. Managing director Hugo Eckener was aware of this risk, which is why the D-LZ129 was actually supposed to be filled with helium. He campaigned intensively for deliveries in the USA, which was the only nation at the time to have the required quantities available. The export license was refused, not least for political reasons, as the United States feared that the Nazi regime could use the Zeppelins as bombers. The Hindenburg was then filled with hydrogen, which meant that capacity could be increased. The tragic accident at Lakehurst, which occurred in May 1937, not only destroyed the Hindenburg, but resulted in numerous fatalities and marked the beginning of the end of the era of the Zeppelin in liner service.

The extremely successful D-LZ127 “Graf Zeppelin” was immediately decommissioned and stored in a hangar in Frankfurt am Main. The successor D-LZ130 “Graf Zeppelin II” only undertook a few test drives and was then stored. Only a few frame rings were manufactured for the planned D-LZ131. In March or April 1940, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring gave the order that the remaining Zeppelins must be scrapped and the airship hangars must be razed to the ground.

Attempts at a comeback after the Second World War failed

After the Second World War there were attempts to get new zeppelins into the air with the LZ132 and LZ133. However, the projects never got beyond the study phases because even those responsible, all of them airshipmen from the interwar period, had to admit to themselves that there was currently no need at all and that the aircraft was superior to the Zeppelins.

The extent to which people were convinced in the interwar period that the future would belong to airships is also shown by the fact that a Zeppelin mast was mounted on the roof of the Empire State Building, which was built in 1930 and 1931. This is still there today and originally there were also rooms for handling passengers on the top floors.

However, apart from individual tests carried out with a US Navy airship, no airship, let alone a German Zeppelin, has ever docked at the Empire State Building. During the tests it turned out that the project was de facto not feasible because, to put it simply: airships rotate with the wind and, especially at the height of skyscrapers, this was simply unpredictable with the technology at the time.

The Zeppelin mast on the roof of the Empire State Building remains as a relic to this day. The floors that were actually intended to be used as an airship terminal are now used for other purposes, so there is little or nothing to remember them. But the fact is that they were fully furnished shortly after opening and the furniture for customs and passport controls was already in place.

Zeppelin Group still exists

However, the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH group survived everything and still exists today. They simply took a different approach, but were able to get the Zeppelin NT series into the air in 1997 via the subsidiary Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH. This differs fundamentally from the original rigid airships and is not used in regular service, but mainly for tours, advertising purposes and special operations. Recently you could sell some copies to the US Goodyear group.

Also worth mentioning in Germany is the WDL airship company, which is active as a designer and operator of so-called impact airships. The airline WDL Aviation, which today belongs to the Zeitfracht Group as German Airways, also emerged from this company. In the United States, Goodyear has been known for its home-made blimps for decades. In the course of fleet renewal, however, a decision was made in favor of Zeppelin NT from the German manufacturer.

A project that ended in a downright scandal was Cargolifter. The Tropical Islands swimming pool, which can be found in Brandenburg, is primarily reminiscent of this. The hall was originally built as a hangar for airships that would have even exceeded the dimensions of the Hindenburg. The idea: move freight goods no longer on the road, but into the air with the help of cargo airships. However, the matter ended in bankruptcy, from which the Zeppelin Group acquired the patents.