For commuting, you're better off with a powered paraglider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_paragliding

> why they couldn’t also be extended to commuter travel?

It takes an airship a while to take off, land, get up to speed, slow down from top speed

Not sure whether the latency is suitable for commute

Edit: hmm now that I think of it, so does a ferry, and a good amount of people commute by ferry in SF..

They might be nice for a one-week safari over Eastern Africa or so.

It’s a reasonable idea in practice, but they can’t carry that much weight, so either you land often for showers or water would have to be recycled. They can have a lot of power by having the top covered in flexible solar panels (ignoring the risk of a spark) so you can run reverse osmosis… but it might be a tough sell.

Sounds vaguely like the plot of Up, lol