The Rise Of Australasia - Chapter 373

Chapter 373: Chapter 318: The Focus of the Celebration Banquet

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“Director Theodore, could you give us an idea of the price range for advanced airships like the Dawn Airship?” Hearing that airships could be sold for non-military purposes as described by Director Theodore, most people breathed a sigh of relief and asked further questions.

Seeing that someone had already taken the bait, Director Theodore calmly answered: “Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, it’s not easy to build an airship that can traverse the entire world. If it were the previous two generations of airships, it would be fine, but for the most advanced AU-3 Airship, its cost has already exceeded sixty thousand pounds. The selling price should be around eighty thousand pounds.”

Doing business with capitalists, naturally, they would try to drive up the price as much as possible. Even if the true cost of the Dawn Airship was only over forty thousand pounds, it did not stop Theodore from asking for such a high price.

But, to be honest, even if the final selling price was around eighty thousand pounds, there is still plenty of room for growth in the aviation industry.

The price of a single airship ticket for the Dawn Airship is as high as tens of thousands of US dollars, which equates to at least a starting price of two thousand pounds.

Even without the selling point of the first global voyage, it shouldn’t be too difficult to maintain a ticket price of over one thousand pounds.

At least for the next ten or so years, airship travel around the world will ultimately be the standard for wealthy individuals and nobility.

As for ordinary people who want to travel globally, other than taking a considerably slow cruise, perhaps they can only realize this dream in their sleep.

If calculated by a ticket price of one thousand pounds per airship, an airship can sell up to 58 tickets, totaling 58,000 pounds.

With that in mind, just two global voyages would allow the airship company to recoup the entire cost of buying the airship and even make a small profit.

Even if the ticket price drops more severely, there should be at least a baseline of five hundred pounds. One voyage’s ticket revenue could make nearly thirty thousand pounds of profit, along with various fees from services offered on the airship, making it incredibly easy for an airline company to break even.

“Director Theodore, may I ask when your institute will be able to officially cooperate with external parties? Frankly, I have plans to establish an airline company. If your institute allows it, we can sign an order for at least ten airships immediately.” A man dressed as an English nobleman, upon hearing the official external quotation for the airship, eagerly spoke to Director Theodore.

Taking advantage of the heat from this global trip, airship ticket prices will likely remain above one thousand pounds for some time.

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This also means that the sooner you can establish an airline company and launch flights, the sooner you can become the first person to split the cake.

Although the current market for airship travel is limited to government officials and nobles from Europe, America, and around the world, as well as capitalists with tremendous wealth in hand.

However, the combined number of government officials, nobles, and capitalists from all around the world is quite terrifying, enough to sustain the aviation industry.

Especially with the development of the United States economy, the connections between the United States and Europe have become even closer.

Fleets can be seen back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean. If many European and American officials, nobles, and capitalists can switch from taking cruises to airships, they are likely to be willing.

More importantly, airships are not only great for carrying passengers but also very useful for cargo transportation.

With a maximum payload capacity of 40 tons, airships have become one of the best means of small-scale transportation, with a high speed that even surpasses trains.

Furthermore, airships only require an open space for takeoff and landing, while trains not only need to build railways and train stations but also require regular maintenance of the tracks; otherwise, trains run the risk of derailing.

Compared to these two transport methods, the people present felt that trains and cruises had been blown out of the water.

Even some capitalists and nobles who hadn’t planned to start an airline company couldn’t help but consider purchasing a private airship.

After all, airships were truly time-saving. When carrying over a hundred people, they only took one month and eleven days to travel around the world, even with many detours.

If only carrying a few dozen people and traveling around the world at the fastest speed without detours, it probably would take less than a month.

Amidst everyone’s conversation, what should have been a celebratory feast for the Aeronautical Research Institute suddenly turned into a negotiation banquet between foreign capitalists and the institute.

Seeing the interest many people had in airships, Director Theodore breathed a sigh of relief.

According to Arthur, at least half of the profits made from selling airships this time would be invested in the Aeronautical Research Room for the development and manufacturing of airplanes and airships.

To Director Theodore’s surprise, the eighty thousand pound asking price for the airships was accepted as reasonable by these foreign capitalists.

They did not even plan to bargain, which led Director Theodore to wonder if the pound had depreciated.

It should be noted that at the eighty thousand pound selling price, an airship sale would make a profit of forty thousand pounds for Australasia.

For every fifty airships sold, Australasia could build a super dreadnought. This act of expanding one’s military with other people’s money is simply exhilarating!

Is 50 airships too much? Director Theodore carefully observed the people around him and even had the illusion that however many airships the Aeronautical Research Institute produced, these people would monopolize them.

In fact, this was normal. If they could completely monopolize the aviation industry, the profits they would earn would be much higher than simply establishing an aviation company.

If they were to monopolize the aviation industry, they could control airship ticket pricing, which directly affected the aviation company’s profits.

However, this did not matter much to Australasia at the moment. After all, at this time, only Australasia could build airships capable of traveling around the world.

With this technology, at least for a short time, Australasia held a monopoly in airship construction.

It was Director Theodore’s plan to use this time to make enough profit for the royal financial group and aerospace laboratory.

Well, in fact, Director Theodore was not greedy. If he could use this opportunity to create at least 3 million pounds in budget for the aerospace laboratory, that would meet his expectations.

It would take the sale of 75 airships to make such a profit from three million pounds.

But looking at the capitalists surrounding him and thinking about the worldwide sensation caused when the news of Australasia’s intent to sell airships became known, Director Theodore considered this number not exaggerated.

“Ladies and gentlemen, in theory, our Aeronautical Research Institute has fully mastered the ability to mass-produce airships. However, it will be some time before we officially cooperate with foreign partners, and that will only be after we have made adequate preparations. If you are all willing, you can visit the Aeronautical Research Institute tomorrow for contract negotiations, such as airship purchases, and to observe our airship production line, and so on,” Director Theodore explained with a smile.

“If all goes well, we should be able to sell the first batch of airships after the Olympic Games. However, due to production limitations, the first batch of airships should not be too numerous, and there should be no more than 20 at most. Rest assured that once we have expanded our production line, the second batch of airships will be in intense production,” Although Director Theodore wanted to use the momentum of the worldwide trip to sell a large number of airships for a huge profit.

But a certain level of scarcity marketing was necessary. If too many airships were sold in one go, not only would the production line not keep up, but the effects would not be as good as scarcity marketing.

Anyway, purchase orders need to be signed ahead of time, but the production speed of airships is fast. This would not only increase these capitalists’ longing for airships but also make them more generous with their money when the time comes.