São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport (GRU) is so far it feels like it is in another state. Viracopos–Campinas International Airport (VCP), is even father, in the city of Campinas, yet is a workable alternate to GRU and the city airport, Congonhas (CGH). The three airports all turn up for searches for SAO.
Viracopos is Trip-Azul’s hub and they offer free shuttles for passengers from São Paulo. Other transport options are more complicated. This is about 100 km from downtown São Paulo so primarily an option for those with more time than cash. Or a connecting option for trips throughout Brazil. And in the obscure award possibility category, TAP Portugal has a flight to Lisbon.
Viracopos, photo by CoelhoVoador.net
Viracopos (VCP) is NOT in another state. It is located in Campinas, state of Sao Paulo together with GRU and CGH. All 3 airports are located in Sao Paulo state.
@Santastico – my mistake, for some reason I was thinking SP is a city state on its own, thanks for the correction.
Flown out of Campinas many times on Azul. The ‘free transportation’ from Sao Paulo is via motor coach on which they have free Wi-Fi. Takes an hour or so with no traffic but there’s far less traffic than heading in the direction of GRU, which is closer but takes longer to get there.
Conveniently, the pick-up we use is at the Barra Funda metro station, so there’s (relatively) easy connections to the rest of Sao Paulo.
@RapidTravelChai – Sao Paulo is the Capital of Sao Paulo state. I know it is weird but that is the way it works there. As you said, Campinas is about 100km NE of Sao Paulo and it is mainly used for people that live in Sao Paulo state but don’t want to travel to Sao Paulo to get flights at CGH or GRU airports for domestic travel. Azul has it’s hub in Viracopos which is very convenient and they use brand new planes and I have heard many good comments from people that fly Azul which was founded by the founder of Jet Blue (azul in Portuguese means blue). However, if you are flying internationally other than this flight from TAP to Lisbon you have no other option that driving to GRU to catch a plane. Under the new developments for the 2014 World Cup there is a plan to have a speed train connecting Viracopos airport to Sao Paulo but I doubt this project will ever go further than the blueprints.
I’m actually changing my travel plans based on this post. Many thanks.