Peleau Airport

Economic reasons. The airport, a private airstrip, was primarily sustained by the local sugar plantations. With the permanent decline and eventual collapse of the sugar industry on the Hamakua Coast of Hawaii's Big Island, the airstrip lost its purpose, was no longer financially viable to maintain, and was subsequently abandoned.

The site is abandoned and exists on private property. The original asphalt runway is still clearly visible in satellite imagery but is in a state of disrepair, heavily overgrown with grass and other vegetation, rendering it completely unusable for any aviation purposes. The surrounding land is now used for diversified agriculture. There are no remaining airport buildings, hangars, or support facilities.

Peleau Airport, also known as Pepeekeo Airstrip, was a private airfield historically significant to the region's dominant sugar industry. It was primarily operated by and for the C. Brewer & Co. sugar company. Operations included agricultural aviation (crop dusting), transportation for plantation executives, and the rapid transit of essential parts and supplies for the sugar mills. The airfield consisted of a single paved runway, approximately 2,500 feet long, and was an important piece of infrastructure for the large-scale agricultural operations in the area from at least the 1960s through the 1980s.

There are no known plans or prospects for reopening Peleau Airport. The land is privately owned, and the economic driver for its existence (the sugar industry) is gone. Given its proximity to the much larger and fully-equipped Hilo International Airport (ITO), located approximately 15 miles to the south, there is no practical or commercial demand that would justify the significant investment required to restore the runway and bring it up to modern aviation standards.