Fresh Cash for Airship Ventures
From sfgate.com: “There have only been three complaints to speak of since Airship Ventures began its luxury zeppelin service flying passengers around the Bay Area three and a half months ago. The primates at the San Francisco Zoo are said to “freak out” when the world’s largest airship passes overhead, and two people on the ground have complained that passengers aboard the ship are looking at them through telephoto lenses. So Alexandra Hall, the chief executive and co-founder of Airship Ventures with her husband, Brian, has ordered that the 246-foot-long Eureka stay clear of the zoo and, well, she insisted that no spying is permitted.”
“As complaints or problems go, most businesses would wish they were so lucky. But, as Hall put it in an interview Friday at the company’s Moffett Field headquarters, “It was not the best time to launch in the luxury tourist business,” just as the economy was tanking. “There was not a lot we could do about that,” because the plans for the sightseeing service were put in motion two years ago and could not be stopped.
The company offers one- and two-hour flights out of Moffett and Oakland International Airport – or longer if desired – for a pretty penny. A standard one-hour flight is $495 per person and two hours is $950. Odds would seem stacked against the company in a downturn. But Hall said Friday that a second round of investor funding, for $2.5 million, will be finalized by the end of next week.” Fresh cash windfall for zeppelin
