It also does so in a medium where the main drag force is induced by air rather than water, which is probably a comparably significant factor

It also needs to beat up that air enough to make the resultant forces overcome gravity acting on the airliner whereas the ship just gets to float there.

Apples to orages.

Yup.

Or to structure it a the earlier comment: for comparison, it takes me about 0.000065 MWh to cycle 1 nautical mile.

That's a couple of apples.

You also aren’t doing so while carrying 2100 passengers sms 225 cars, I imagine.

Plus they are going to get very waterlogged cycling that nautical mile.

Some dedicated cyclists will cycle in any weather.

And a maglev train?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev