What is the Tower of Zephyros for?

SPOILER ALERT: SKT Plot Points dicussed.
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So what is the Tower of Zephyros episode in Storm King's Thunder for? Is it really just to give the players a fast way to move around Faerun or is there some point I'm missing.

I find it really weird that the players are expected to jump aboard a Cloud Giant's flying castle right after they've just rescued a town devasted by cloud giants. So I'm not all that enthusiastic about this episode to begin with.

And in my campaign, in which the PCs are guarding a caravan on a trip from Luskan to Bryn Shander, I don't need the flying castle as transport. I moved Nightstone to be a river fort and trading post at the place where the Northern Means crosses the Iceflow (note to F.R. folks--there definitely should be something here; a bridge and most likely a town). So my characters are already on their way up to Bryn Shander.

I guess my question is what will we miss out on if I take Zephyros and his tower out all together?

What might they miss without the tower?
*A fight with giant vulture riders?
*Some treasure from that?
These two could definitely be put elsewhere.
*Maybe a chance to befriend some griffons? (we did that in our own game. I know there's griffons as written, I don't know how it's scripted.)
*Learning that not all the giants are necessarily hostile to the small folk.
*Definitely a faster means of traveling about the Sword Coast.
*Maybe a potential ally? Later in the game we called up Zepheros & went Kraken boat hunting (not sure how the book has that one scripted either)

And I agree. Given what just happened to the town it's very strange to hop aboard a cloud giant tower.

And if you think allying with a cloud giant is odd? Allying with a frost giant later is even stranger.

It's for exposition.

Big Z gives you the background on the Giants v. dragon war, the current state of the ordning, and if you pass on the description of what happened at Nightstone, a giant descending with winged humanoid figures, he can clue you in on to who was responsible.

Also so my current Barbarian could shove someone off the edge of a cloud.

I just ran it, knowing my characters would love the encounter with him. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this encounter. It took my party 3 hours, mostly just role-playing (they are very combat-oriented players, so this is big).

We were coming off of LMoP though. My players already knew giants were attacking places, and displacing people, via their factions. The book would have me skip this encounter (being part of Ch1) and go to Triboar, but I know my players like to get everything from an adventure, and that they would make their way to Triboar if I sent them to Goldenfields to return the Tressym to Miros (in this, Miros' parents were killed in one of the diversionary orc raids around triboar). However, I knew this encounter was a great scene, and mind, setter.

The biggest points are:
- The giant is met by an "evil" group wishing to gain his support. He declines, and they leave without confrontation. This indicates a type of neutrality towards the small races.

- The giant is met with a "good" group wishing to stop the tower - a good indication of the threat the giants pose, and that not all giants are evil, signalling that the characters should not always attack giants.

- Really easy way to introduce the magnificence of giants - the stone statues casting artistic shadows (suggesting they were made by skilled stone giant crafters), how every movement Zephyros makes seems to cause a slight gust of wind from his sheer size (from pulling the entryway curtain back to dropping tiredly into his chair). I even had him let out an excruciatingly large whistle to call to one of his griffons which he then treated like a cat. These things tell the characters "they're not just big, they're powerful."

These three points are huge "mind-setters" for the players, and the whole ordeal is memorable if you play the social aspects well, which reminds players that 1) giants are strong, and a threat 2) That this is not a kill-em-all campaign.

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Lots of small points as well:
- First giant they interact with
- He is eccentric, so they characters can deduce he is not the norm
- Informs them of the ordning (and anything the characters would like to know from his books - they have 10 days to waste, could use for introducing little hooks. For example Fireshear, if they're interested in riding griffons)
- They get to see how he fits into the cloud giant hierarchy, thus learning of different hierarchies (I placed him as being quite low, having 1 magic item and the tower, with the only other things of value being the books he wrote himself. My players assumed he didn't have much due to his being overly generous after receiving the pixie dust)
- Easy to have as a reoccurring character
- The tower/cloud is ancient, and comes from the Thousand Year War period ("these magic clouds are a lasting remnant of the giants’ lost empires." - Monster Manual), so it should/could have traces of other giants or some interesting details to fill in the flavour of the giants (see shadows cast by the statues above)
- No pressure to explain everything, easy excuse to not provide information is that he was told not to interfere too much
- You can have so much fun role playing this guy, my players LOVED him (they even told me they would rage quit if I killed him like I did their favourite character in Strahd)

Ummm..... Zephyros perhaps?