Qingdao Airlines is a startup Chinese airline that commenced operations on 26 April 2014 (2014-04-26). The carrier is based at Qingdao Liuting International Airport.

An application for the establishment of an airline based in the Shandong province was filed with the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) by the Yantai-based Nanshan Group in May 2013 (2013-05). Approval was received by the CAAC between that month and June 2013 (2013-06), when Qingdao Airlines was formed.

Initially, the airline was owned by the Nanshan Group (55%), the Qingdao Transport Development Group (QTDG) (25%) and Shandong Airlines (20%). The initial capital of Qingdao Airlines was CNY1 billion (USD161 million). In July 2015 (2015-07), Shandong Airlines transferred its shares to a subsidiary of the Nanshan Group; as of August 2015^[update], the airline plans to sell the 25% of the shares held by QTDG in order to become fully private.

As of April 2014^[update], Song Zuowen was the president of the airline.

The airline's headquarters are in Chengyang District, Qingdao.

Operations started on 26 April 2014 (2014-04-26) linking Qingdao with Chengdu. As of May 2014^[update], the airline's top five routes ranked by seat capacity were Qingdao–Shanghai, Qingdao–Beijing, Qingdao–Hangzhou, Qingdao–Shenyang and Qingdao–Dalian. As of October 2016^[update], Qingdao Airlines served the following destinations:

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