It really depends how interactive they wish to make the airship experience. IMO if they want to add exploration and make it a random/open ended experience, their best bet would be to have a sky map with grid based exploration and the airships built to uncover the areas would be outfitted with unique abilities based on how they were made.

They could integrate a 4-8 man party system via setting roles as positions on the ship, 2 pilots, 2 repairers/support and 4 damage dealer (cannons guns etc)

They could integrate the current treasure map system into the airship system and allow a means to find random treasure within the sky or maybe even hidden locations that only reveal themselves when certain requirements are met and maybe disappear after a set amount of time.

I really am just hoping they nail it with the gameplay aspect of airship cause it would be disappointing if all they do with is is "build airship" "now you can go to sky continent" with no meat behind what you can actually do with the airship.