Boeing Getting Into Industrial Blimp Business

The Skyhook is a terrific looking aircraft with eight engines. Four of them are vertical rotors that can give some extra lift, allowing the airship to lift 40 tons. The other four engines are directional propellers to control the precise movement of the Skyhook.

I've thought about this before: Why not use lighter-than-air craft for overseas shipping? Just build a monstrous dirigible, with 1,000 times as much volume as what you see above (for a reasonable construction price compared to a PanaMax container ship, I'd wager). Then, fill the thing up with your shipment and set it aloft in the jet stream. When the airship gets near its destination, fire up the engines for the last little bit of traveling, and set it down on target. It would use a microscopic fraction of the fuel compared to shipping, (solar power at those altitudes is an obvious possibility), it can reach all inland areas of the planet that ships cannot get to (so no more costs related to ports, trains, et cetera), and with jet streams zipping along at 100 to 200 kilometers per hour, it would get your shipment across the majority of the distance much faster than any ship could (East Coast America to Europe in 40-50 hours).

The only two problems I can see is (1) that stuff going from America to Asia or Europe to America would have to go the opposite direction all the way around the world, as that is the direction of the jet stream, but (a) even with that distance, it's still faster than a ship, and (b) the extra distance requires no extra fuel; and (2) that most cargo doesn't hold up well at 30,000 feet and containers would need to be redesigned to be environment neutral.

I'm sure I've overlooked all sorts of other pesky details, and I'd love to hear them... but really: Even if there are pesky details, are they so difficult to overcome that they would totally outweigh the benefits of this idea?