Small-scale dredging projects usually adopt small cutter suction dredgers for construction. Nevertheless，the transportation and discharge distance of such dredgers fail to meet the demands due to the small power of their dredge pump. This paper explores the impact of the aeration technology for small-diameter dredging pipes on the pipeline’s discharge distance. The field test relies on the Shimen’ao storage，retention，dredging and reclamation project and takes place at two positions 300 m apart on the reclamation pipe in two modes，namely direct aeration with an air compressor and mixed aeration with a jet aerator. The test results show that the proposed pipeline aeration technology can effectively improve the transportation and discharge distance. Specifically，direct aeration with an air compressor produces a better result than that of mixed aeration with a jet aerator，especially when the aeration point is close to the end of the ship，and achieves an average increase of 22.2% in discharge distance，while mixed aeration with a jet aerator increases the discharge distance by 12% on average. The field test verifies the feasibility of the aeration technology for dredging pipes and provides a new solution to the discharge distance problem in dredging engineering.