In order to accurately describe the mechanical behavior of air cushion in finite element analysis，a constitutive model for polymer membrane was developed and applied to study the cushioning properties of air cushion. Based on uniaxial tensile tests of the polymer film, a compressible hyperelastic constitutive model was proposed. Material parameters were obtained by curve fitting. The model was validated by implementing numerical simulations on compression test of one column of the air cushion. Comparisons between simulation results and experimental data show that the proposed hyperelastic model can effectively characterize the nonlinear material behavior of the polymer membrane. The model was further applied to analyze the influence of inflation pressure on the performance of the air cushion. The development of the hyperelastic constitutive model is critical to the numerical simulation and design optimization of air cushion packaging.