[danw1979]

It doesn’t. The author is dreaming that airships might be able to just drop cargo off anywhere and I guess customs just happens in software somehow.

Nor is it clear how they are refuelled, or how they are immune from the same fluctuations in fuel cost as conventional cargo aircraft.

But what is clear is that you should “possibly invest” in his syndicate which is funding all this…

[mananaysiempre]

Customs in software is already a bit of a thing, judging from what postal tracking reports on occasion. I guess that doesn’t obviate the need for physical inspections, but it should make them faster.

[Scoundreller]

Sadly, the US still receives 95% of all postal imports through 1 of 5 international service centres: Chicago, IL; Los Angeles, CA; Miami, FL; New York, NY, and San Francisco, CA

Northwest = NO YUO!

Technically 22 other places are supposed to accept international mail, but in reality, the other 5% go through Newark (for some surface mail), Hawaii, Guam and American Samoa.

This creates some long detours.

https://www.uspsoig.gov/reports/audit-reports/international-...

[Retric]

The issue is customs isn’t going to happen at some random factory / job site. International mail looks point to point from and end users perspective but as far as the government in concerned it’s all going throw a small number of locations as it enters the county. At least relative to the number of street addresses.

[loeg]

Sure, but why does that only benefit airships and not conventional airplanes?

[mananaysiempre]

I don’t expect it will, I’m just surprised whenever my parcel shows it’s been cleared by customs before it has even left the origin country. (And that’s not a timezone bug, it’s explicitly described as a remote authorization, a preauthorization, or something like that.) Customs (partly) in software is not an absurd idea, was my point, I have no opinion on airships other than acknowledging their inherent coolness.

[ErrantX]

Manifest approvals has been a reality for a while. But that works because, not despite, the bottlenecks.

Countries know goods must flow through certain choke points so they can essentially quality control the manifests.

Remove that and pre-authorised customs will go again.

[yellowapple]

Cargo planes require dedicated airports and runways and all that jazz, whereas the selling point of cargo airships seems to be to not need any of that; the article depicts one such airship handling a shipping container directly at a warehouse, for example. The need to go through some sort of customs process complicates things, but being able to put customs checkpoints further inland (closer to the end-destination) seems like it'd be appealing.

My concern is around the space an airship takes up; coordinating traffic for maximum throughput is going to be a nightmare.

[xhkkffbf]

They don't need to be immune from the same fluctuations in fuel costs. But if they use less fuel per ton, then a rise in fuel prices should benefit them more.

[dbingham]

Airships could potentially be electric and solar powered. That would insulate it from fuel cost fluctuations. It would also resolve the issue with refueling.

[sn9]

Or you could just have a Terraform fuel plant synthesizing fuel colocated with every landing site.

[perilunar]

The fuel plant doesn't have to be colocated with the pickup/delivery sites — you can do a fuel stop en-route if needed.

[calmbonsai]

Is that you Casey? If so, though we disagree on the future of Airships, I love what Terraform is doing.

[UncleOxidant]

A smuggler's dream.