THE world's biggest airship was due to make its first commercial flight over Tokyo yesterday - 70 years after the Hindenburg disaster brought the golden age of the dirigible to a fiery end.

The new helium-filled Zeppelin NT is 75 metres long and will take passengers between 300 and 600 metres above Tokyo at speeds of up to 80kmh.

Built by the German firm Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik, the Zeppelin will offer regular weekend and holiday flights over Tokyo, including a night flight on Christmas Day and a sunrise excursion on New Year's Day.

Tickets for the 90-minute trips, the first commercial airship flights in Japan, will cost ¥126,000 ($1340) for daytime flights and ¥168,000 for those at night, said its owner, Nippon Airship.

"We will fly much lower than an airplane at a leisurely pace," said the firm's president, Hiroyuki Watanabe.

Although it is about the same length as a jumbo jet, the Zeppelin's cabin has room for just eight passengers and an attendant. Travellers who find themselves unnerved by the airship's steep ascent, powered by three 200 horsepower engines, and its ability to hover above skyscrapers, need not worry: the cabin is equipped with a toilet.

Japan Travel Bureau will organise 104 flights in Tokyo in the coming weeks and hopes to offer services in other parts of Japan in the northern spring, possibly including the ancient capital of Kyoto.

Dirigibles have been around since the end of the 19th century and were used - largely unsuccessfully - by Germany as bombers during World War I before being put to use by the Nazi propaganda machine in the late 1930s.

Guardian News & Media

Traveloscopy Editor Notes: The original 237m Graf Zeppelin (LZ127) flew more than one million miles between 1928 and 1937 and made 144 ocean crossings (143 across the Atlantic, one across the Pacific) with a perfect passenger safety record.