Looking at China in the First Year: Decoding the Pilot Free Trade Zone | From 'Back-and-Forth' to 'Zero Distance' – The Aviation Smart Port Accelerates Cross-Border Logistics
Recently, a batch of lobsters imported from Canada was unloaded at the Jinan International Cargo Station, then directly loaded onto domestic flights via the airside gate and transported across the country. From shipment from the Canadian origin to delivery on the tables of domestic citizens, it took only 48 hours. This is a daily scene of the 'airside direct connection' operation at Jinan Airport, and a vivid example of how this inland city solves international logistics bottlenecks.
Behind the acceleration of efficient cross-border logistics scenarios lies a deep institutional innovation. In December 2025, the General Office of the Shandong Provincial People's Government issued a notice to replicate and promote 38 new institutional innovation achievements from the Shandong Pilot Free Trade Zone across the province. Among them, the 'New Model for Aviation Smart Port Cross-Border Trade Facilitation' is one of the reform pilot experiences. From Jinan to Qingdao, an 'efficiency revolution' covering the entire province is unfolding over Shandong.
From 'Back-and-Forth' to 'Zero Distance': Breaking Traditional Boundaries of Aviation Ports
Pain points are the starting point. Before the reform, goods to be exported on domestic flights had to be unloaded at domestic cargo stations, undergo security checks, then be transported by truck to the international cargo station's customs supervised warehouse, and after a second security check, be taken from the supervised warehouse to international flights for export. First, the cumbersome process led to time delays, severely affecting enterprises' ability to undertake orders with high timeliness requirements. Second, labor costs remained high. For overnight transshipment, the traditional model required three operators per parcel, with labor costs accounting for over 20% of total logistics costs. Third, repeated steps drove up comprehensive costs: short-distance transport between domestic and international warehouses cost about 650 yuan per parcel; repeated security checks, de-palletizing, and repacking added 0.7 yuan per kilogram. These pain points once discouraged many high-end manufacturing and cross-border e-commerce enterprises.
To address traditional drawbacks, Jinan Airport Customs, together with relevant units, systematically innovated across four dimensions—process, supervision, technology, and collaboration—to create a new 'airside direct connection' model. Its core is the innovative design of the 'airside gate,' which centralizes the transshipment operations between domestic and international cargo within the airport's airside area (the supervised zone around the apron), eliminating the cumbersome processes of short-distance transport, loading and unloading, and multiple security checks. At the same time, the Jinan area introduced a new model of 'advance declaration + arrival at apron' for imported goods: upon arrival, goods can be immediately distributed and picked up on the apron without staying at the international cargo station, reducing the average number of cargo handling operations by 2 times and shortening pick-up time by 6 hours for enterprises.
The numbers from this change are direct and striking: through the intensive operation of 'one loading, one warehousing,' ground operation costs are reduced by approximately 87.1%, logistics transportation costs by about 61.5%, and cargo damage rate by over 50%. Since this year, a total of 350 batches and 223.1 tons of goods have been facilitated.
From 'Apron Direct Pick-up' to 'Same-Day Transfer': Making Cross-Border Trade Visible and Perceptible
In Qingdao, the 'international transit channel' is continuously expanding. As an international hub, Qingdao Airport's transit demand keeps rising. In August 2025, the Qingdao municipal government issued 31 measures to optimize the aviation port business environment: supporting the direct transfer of goods arriving via domestic air to international areas for export; and optimizing 'airside direct connection' supervision at aviation ports. In January 2026, the '9610' cross-border e-commerce goods transit channel from Shenzhen to Qingdao to Japan and South Korea, jointly built by Qingdao Airport and Shenzhen Airport, was officially opened and has entered a normalized operation stage. Soon after, the hub function facing Japan and South Korea deepened, with Qingdao Airport strengthening 'flight wave' coordination with international hub airports like Incheon and Osaka, injecting strong momentum into the regional cross-border e-commerce industry.
On April 26, 2026, Qingdao Airport successfully opened a 'one-document-to-end' international transit cargo channel from Europe to Oceania. Through the continuously optimized 'airside direct transfer' support model, the cargo transit process is greatly simplified, reducing transshipment and inspection links, achieving 'one document to the end, seamless connection, and efficient transfer.' Since 2026, Qingdao Airport has successively opened the Europe-Oceania international transit channel and fully connected the Qingdao-Shenzhen to Japan-Korea air-to-air transit channel, further improving the 'via Qingdao transit' logistics distribution function and cross-border connectivity.
The support of the smart port digital platform is equally critical. The China (Shandong) International Trade 'Single Window' platform pioneered the country's aviation logistics public information platform for airport border inspection declaration mode, simplifying the operation process across four systems into a single platform; it also integrated entry and exit logistics document input, effectively reducing nearly 30 duplicate input fields. After the platform went live, enterprise operation convenience was greatly improved, building a 'smart interconnection, efficient collaboration, efficient operation' port ecosystem.
From 'One Flower Blooming Alone' to 'Spring Full in the Garden': The Institutional Core of the Aviation Smart Model
The 'New Model for Aviation Smart Port Cross-Border Trade Facilitation' became a reform pilot experience replicated across the province precisely because it touched the three core levels of innovation.
First, it is a typical 'pioneering' institutional breakthrough. The introduction of the 'airside gate' concept shifted the core operation scenario of cargo transit from landside to airside, reconstructing the spatial layout of customs supervision. In Jinan and Qingdao, pioneering supervision mechanisms such as 'apron direct pick-up,' 'apron direct transfer,' and 'airside direct connection' have been implemented intensively, forming a complete aviation smart port supervision system. Second, it is a benchmark for 'integrated' innovation. The four dimensions of process reengineering, supervision optimization, technology empowerment, and collaborative linkage are promoted together. It is not just about customs 'changing processes,' but a system-level project involving multi-party collaboration among customs, airports, third-party service providers, airlines, and border inspection—this is precisely the methodology of institutional innovation in pilot free trade zones. Third, it is a model of 'digital' supervision. The smart customs '3+1+1' information system was first put into use, providing real-time customs clearance status pushes to enterprises and achieving efficient coordination of aviation logistics. At the same time, the 'Smart Port Visualization Platform' built using digital twin technology constructs a 1:1 port model, providing a panoramic dynamic view of goods entry, exit, transfer, and storage in real time. The airside gate equipped with RFID electronic tags and 5G+IoT technology enables real-time visualization of goods entry, exit, inspection, and other information. 'Scan the tag, and you can see where the goods come from, where they are going, and whether they have been inspected—it's clearer than calling three departments in the past,' said an operator from Shandong Xunjiean International Logistics Co., Ltd.
The reform dividends of the 'New Model for Aviation Smart Port Cross-Border Trade Facilitation' are extending to a broader scope. The China (Shandong) International Trade 'Single Window' now connects with customs, maritime, border inspection, pilot stations, and other port departments, achieving 'one document, five reports' for ship transport tools and improving cross-border joint inspection efficiency.
In the western hinterland of Shandong, the first non-port airport air transport customs supervised operation site in the country—Heze Airport International Cargo Station—is pushing the aviation smart port model to wider hinterlands. In its first year of operation, the customs supervised station handled 386.9 tons of import and export goods with a value exceeding 200 million yuan, opening 13 international transit channels. This 'virtual port' smart supervision model has completely ended the history of local goods relying on coastal and surrounding ports for customs clearance. 'Now, our company's raw materials are basically imported via Heze Airport transit. The transportation time has been reduced from the original 5-7 days to 2-3 days, and the transportation cost per ton of goods can be reduced by about 2,000 yuan,' said Cao Qishuai, general manager of Juancheng County Xindafa Hair Products Co., Ltd.
Embarking on a New Journey: Using Institutional Opening to Help Build a Strong Country
In a higher-dimensional opening-up pattern, institutional innovation is working in synergy with macro policies. In March 2026, the General Administration of Customs, together with 24 departments including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Development and Reform Commission, jointly deployed a 2026 cross-border trade facilitation special action in 45 cities including Beijing, Qingdao, Jinan, and Yantai, involving 29 measures such as deepening innovation in import and export customs clearance supervision models, improving cross-border logistics transportation efficiency, strengthening digital port construction, and promoting standards and rules connectivity. A relevant person from Qingdao Airport said that the next step will be to continuously optimize the 'Qingyi Da' transit business process, take practical measures to help optimize the port business environment, and strive to build the northern aviation logistics transfer center.
From 'four-hour transit' to 'two-hour direct arrival,' from 'multiple back-and-forth links' to 'airside direct connection with zero waiting'—the Shandong Pilot Free Trade Zone has added fuel to the fire with 'pioneering and integrated' institutional innovation, continuously shortening the customs clearance time for cross-border trade. Looking ahead, the Shandong Pilot Free Trade Zone will continue to deepen the main channel of institutional opening, contributing more replicable and scalable innovative experiences to the province and the whole country with 'free trade zone solutions' and 'Shandong wisdom,' allowing the wings of opening to soar high over Shandong.
