How are you manouvering?

With modern understanding of upper-atmosphere winds, altitude-only manouvering is more practical, but you'd still need engines for finer control. 

But I daresay a top speed of only 1 m/s relative to the wind for a few hours per voyage could work. 

 nah for cargo airships where you want to maximise your payload you’ll be operating at much lower altitudes where the atmosphere is still dense. 
so i’d still be using EDFs and big ol control surfaces