Passenger airship leaves Las Vegas skies

Thursday, Dec. 21, 2000 | 10:50 a.m.

The company that flies the airship that has been sponsored by vegas.com has left Las Vegas and will put the blimp into its contract advertising fleet.

Toby Page, director of North American marketing for the Lightship Group, Orlando, Fla., said the airship -- the first to offer commercial passenger sightseeing tours in the world -- suffered from a lack of customers.

Page said the airship, capable of carrying nine passengers per flight, only had about 75 percent of the loads necessary to make the flights financially feasible.

The last flight was Friday. Page said the decision to stop operations came when the Clark County Department of Aviation moved forward on an expansion plan that would relocate the blimp mooring area to the north side of the North Las Vegas Airport.

Under the expansion plan, a northwest-southeast-aligned runway would be built parallel to an existing runway and a new air traffic control tower will be added. But the new runway, which will help accommodate a growing number of student pilots, interfered with the blimp mooring area and the blimps were to be moved to a site near the Cheyenne Air Center. Airship operators were asked to contribute financially to the blimp area's improvements -- an expense Page said led to the decision to move.

"The runway expansion plan is what put the final nail in the coffin," Page said. "It may affect all other blimp traffic at the airport."

Page said the airship, which has been flying over Las Vegas' skies since October 1999, would join the Lightship Group's fleet of 16 contract advertising blimps, eight of which are based in North American locations.

The Las Vegas-based ship was sponsored by vegas.com, whose advertising contract with the blimp ended in November. Vegas.com is the Internet site for the Greenspun Media Group, owned by the Greenspun family, which also publishes the Las Vegas Sun.

Bryan Allison, director of content for vegas.com, said a decision hadn't been reached on whether the contract would have been renewed.

Leisa McMahon, sales manager for Las Vegas Airship, the local affiliate of the Lightship Group, said the company is contacting passengers with reservations or gift certificates for flights to give them refunds.

The local operation had about 25 employees in sales, marketing, operations and flight crews. They will be offered positions with Lightship Group operations in other locations.