The work aims to explore the cushioning characteristics of communicated airbag for airdrop of heavy equipment by establishing the finite element model and conducting simulation. The finite element model of equipment & airbag system was established by uniform pressure multi-chamber airbag model theory. The drop and cushion process was resolved and simulated by explicit nonlinear finite element method. The effect of communicated hole size on cushioning characteristics was analyzed. As the communicated hole size increased, the pressure difference among chambers became smaller, the maximum deviation gradually decreased from 13.2% to 0, and the acceleration peak gradually decreased from 7.130g to 6.925g, but the acceleration peak did not change much on the whole. The communicated airbag could achieve basically the same cushioning characteristics as the uncommunicated airbag. For the equipment with front center of gravity, in order to avoid excessive pitching of the equipment, the size of the communicated hole should not be set too large. The research results provide theories and technical means for design and improvement of communicated airbag for airdrop of heavy equipment.