One must be careful to match like with like when comparing fares. Ocean liners carried both highly expensive first class passengers and poor 3rd class migrants and made money from both. For an airship the buyer would be comparing the journey cost with a premium for the relative speed. The comparison thus must be with first class ocean liner charges (including the extra spent on board ship for the comparatively longer voyage) and with good second class for officials and commercial travellers sent abroad or returning. Adding a certain extra for the cachet of an air journey and the value of speed and the numbers are quite plausible. The key difference is that ship passengers are not weight limited but space limited. Two cheap passengers do not make one whole expensive one in an airship but cramming in the steerage peasants was just as profitable to a shipping company as the first class ones with all their rooms. Unlike aeroplanes overnight stops or en route breaks are not necessary. An on journey stop need only be to set down/pick up passengers, fuel, water and stores. 4 hours should be more than enough and 2 seems possible. Having enough trained manpower at each landing point would probably be the tricky bit. You could easily get cheap day labour but that is not the quality needed for the task in all feasible weather. Mooring towers were one answer to that.
Re radar, the need to identify storms to allow avoidance may give a commercial impetus to radar development.
Re radar, the need to identify storms to allow avoidance may give a commercial impetus to radar development.