Usina Sao Geraldo Airport

The closure was due to economic and operational consolidation. The airport exclusively served the Usina São Geraldo, a large sugar and ethanol mill. This mill was acquired by the Cosan group, which later formed the Raízen joint venture (with Shell). Large corporations often centralize their operations, including aviation, to improve efficiency and reduce costs. The private airstrip was likely deemed redundant and not cost-effective, with its functions (executive transport and agricultural aviation) being consolidated or outsourced to operate from larger, better-equipped regional airports like Ribeirão Preto's Leite Lopes Airport (SBRP).

The airport is permanently closed and no longer exists. The land that once formed the unpaved runway has been fully reclaimed for agricultural use. Current satellite imagery shows the area is now part of the surrounding sugarcane plantation, with no visible traces of the former airstrip or associated aviation facilities like hangars. The site is now used exclusively for farming by the mill.

The airport's significance was purely industrial and local, tied directly to the agribusiness of the Ribeirão Preto region, one of the world's largest sugarcane-producing areas. It was a critical logistical asset for the Usina São Geraldo. Operations primarily consisted of:
1. **Agricultural Aviation:** The airstrip was a base for crop-dusting aircraft to spray pesticides, fertilizers, and maturation agents on the vast sugarcane plantations owned by the mill.
2. **Executive Transport:** It facilitated rapid travel for the mill's executives, engineers, and owners to and from major business centers like São Paulo.
3. **Utility and Support:** It may have been used for aerial surveillance of crops and the transport of urgent spare parts for the industrial plant. The existence of the airport highlighted the scale and self-sufficiency of major agro-industrial complexes in Brazil during that era.

There are no known plans or prospects for reopening the airport. The prospect is virtually zero. The parent company, Raízen, has a well-established transportation and logistics network that utilizes major public airports. The land has been repurposed for its primary economic value—growing sugarcane—and recreating an airport would be economically unviable and strategically unnecessary.