Blimps are slow.

That means they’d probably cost more than commercial jets, because the crew is being paid for a longer period of time.

It also seems like jets can fly in far more inclement weather than blimps, but I’m no expert in that.

Of course everything currejntly costs more than commercial jets now because we aren't pricing in the havoc to the fuel cost, this can't be the criterion.

Also, the Hindenburg went at 100+ km/h in the 30's, we're already using many kinds of vehicles that go at similar speeds and don't cost more than commercial jets. Hopefully we could beat the 30's technology in speed, that's just the lower bound.

edit: also, correcting my terminology, I should have talked about "rigid airships" instead of "blimps" apparently - blimps are like balloons with little engines, and the Hindenburg & modern credible air travel blimpy looking designs are "rigid airships".

They're also fragile, handle poorly in adverse conditions, and have little excess lifting capacity.

In a world in which heavier-than-air flight becomes less affordable, there might be some niche uses. In general, my sense is that lighter-than-air craft are simply too close to the limits of potential engineering and materials.

Sure there are drawbacks, but they can be mitigated to some extent by engineering, and we're not in a position to be choosers about it. Airplanes were also all of those things before enormous amounts of engineering investment started being poured into it, continuing incremental improvements across 100 years.

The question is not "how can we keep our air travel habits?" after all.

First, I applaud you on your conclusion, because I feel that point is lost on many who seem to view the present state as some ordained condition to extend through all time.

Air travel has been transformational, fast, reasonably convenient, and cheap. It's also been an accident of geohistory, in many regards. The coming / current fuels transition will raise the costs of many things, transport included, and air transport most especially. One of the lessons of history is that the consequences of costs falling, as many have through the industrial revolutions, have subtle and profound influences, mostly unanticipated by those who first started down specific technical pathways.

My sense is that rising costs will operate similarly. We'll have much of the knowledge and technical understanding achieved over the past 200 years, but we'll see costs rising or capabilities falling in many domains. And that will have profound and subtle ripple effects.

Small aircraft may be possible, and perhaps slow airships, but the era of mass bulk human transcontinental transport, quite probably not so much. Or possible, but at prices at some multiple of today: 2x, 10x, 100x, 1,000x. Or transoceanic travel of 1-3 days, rather than 6-18 hours.

Getting back to airships: there are only so many materials available. An airship requires some sort of frame, some sort of lifting gas containment, motors, an energy source, and passenger or cargo facilities. Even excluding hydrogen as a lifting gas, they've proved expensive and dangerous. Vehicles such as LEMV / Airlander 10 are not strictly rigid, but is in part supported by pneumatic pressure. The craft itself was written off after coming loose from moorings in high winds.

Top speeds will be on the order of 160 - 240 kph, rather than 1,000 kph for jet aircraft. Flight levels will likely be < 1,000 meter -- Hindenberg cruised at 300m, though often much lower. That's well into weather, which airships handle poorly. LEMV had a requirement to operate to 20,000 ft (6,000 meters), though it only reached 3,500 ft (1,000m) in testing.

I've watched and read breathless accounts of an airship revival for decades. To date they've failed to meet promised capabilities.