https://youtu.be/LyaYaFzSPac?si=hZ6HV0YuCOg-WUYT
Basically, the economics no longer work. Airships really can’t carry that much weight relative to their operational costs. They’re loud and they’re slow which isn’t a great customer experience. The amount of money you would have to pay for a ticket to make it economical would be more than a first class ticket on a modern jet, which would also get you there much faster.
(BTW all of Mustard’s videos are great. They have super high production value and are primarily about transportation technologies of the 50s 60s 70s and 80s. I recommend watching it on Nebula if you can.)
Comparing airships to first class air travel isn't the right basis. You want to compare to trains and ships at least. You take a ship or train when speed isn't the objective, rather experience. An airship experience with a few dozen passengers taking tours of beautiful scenery over the course of a coastal trip, or like a group hot air balloon, or something like that.
not sure if that's the case with HSR
I'd bet they'd all be safe today by simply not moving into weather systems.
Airships have pretty surprisingly low service ceilings, and experience a huge trade-off in payload capacity (by weight) vs. operating altitude.
A modern airship can be made much lighter while also being sturdier and somehow structurally redundant. But its sheer size still makes it expensive. The only relatively operational development I'm aware of is Airlander, and it's still a prototype, since the US Army rejected it.
It will be safe but of less use than other aircraft/transport that can work in bad weather, or can wait out in a hangar or get in and out of a bad weather system quickly.