New York → Seoul flights

Target $420–$440 for JFK–Seoul — the data's floor holds tight

Key takeaways

• $436 is the median one-way fare across 30 days of cached cheapest fares — a useful anchor for budget planning.
• The bottom quartile sits at $423 or below, meaning roughly one in four snapshots showed fares at or under that level.
• The low of $419 confirms a genuine floor exists, though it appeared infrequently enough to treat as a best-case, not a baseline.
• The top quartile rises to $539+, and the ceiling hit $610 — a 46% spread that signals meaningful price volatility on this route.
• With a 46% spread, timing your purchase matters: fares in the upper half of the range cost $100–$170 more than fares in the lower half.

30-day price trend

See full numbers and stats on the JFK → ICN price history page.

The full picture

The JFK–Seoul (ICN) fare landscape across our 30-day snapshot window tells a clear story: there is a dependable low-price cluster and a meaningful risk of overpaying if you book at the wrong moment. The interquartile range — $423 to $539 — spans $116, which is substantial for a single fare. That 46% spread between the observed low ($419) and high ($610) is wide enough that booking strategy genuinely affects what you pay. If your budget target is $450 or less, the data suggest that's achievable: half of all snapshots came in at or below $436, and the bottom quarter were at or under $423.

On a long-haul transpacific route like this one, fares tend to be most competitive when purchased in a window roughly 6–10 weeks before departure for peak periods and 3–6 weeks out for shoulder-season travel. Prices in our snapshot window did not carry date-of-travel metadata, so we cannot confirm seasonal patterns from this dataset alone — but the presence of fares as low as $419 alongside spikes to $610 is consistent with demand-driven inventory management: carriers release discounted seats in waves, and those windows close quickly. Setting a price alert at or below $430 and acting within 24–48 hours of a match is a reasonable approach given the data.

No dominant carrier was identifiable from this dataset, so we cannot point to a specific airline as the consistent price leader on JFK–ICN. One honest caveat: 30 snapshots reflect the cheapest available cached fare on each day, not a full distribution of all seats sold. True booking-window behavior — how prices move at 90 days out versus 14 days out — requires longitudinal fare tracking that this snapshot window does not fully capture. Treat $436 as your planning baseline, $423 as your target, and $539+ as a sign to keep waiting if your schedule allows.

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