[tinybrotosaurus]

As long as hydrogen is (ignorantly) banned, airships will never make a comeback. LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, using hydrogen as lifting gas, flew 1.7 million km safely. [1]. Built in the 20's, without polymers or hydrogen sensors or electronics of any kind. The real problem, however, is not the lifting gas. It never was. Airships biggest nemesis is the wind. Luckily we have it solved today with radar and satellite imagery.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_127_Graf_Zeppelin

[singingboyo]

I'm not sure wind and weather are solved. Planes, ships, and to a lesser extent cars/trains are still lost to weather quite frequently. Yes, we can track it better, but people still have to go about their lives in inclement weather. Knowing where it is does not mean we never have to deal with it.

Also, as others have noted elsewhere, hydrogen is still an absolute pain to work with. It's better than it was, but that doesn't make it safe. In-flight fires are still a nightmare on planes - it'd be much worse if the only thing keeping you in the air is a massive hydrogen balloon.

All this is apart from airships being slow, unwieldy, relatively low altitude, etc.