New York → Seoul flights

Budget $539 for JFK–Seoul — prices cluster tightly near that mark

Key takeaways

• $539 is the median fare across 17 daily snapshots — and also the 75th-percentile price, meaning most days cluster right at or below it.
• $499 is the floor observed in the data — roughly 7% below median, so meaningful savings exist but require catching fares at their infrequent low points.
• $533–$539 is where half of all observed fares landed (the interquartile range), signaling an unusually tight pricing band for a transpacific route.
• The 19% spread (low to high) is moderate — not a volatile route, but the $94 gap between floor and ceiling is still worth timing if your schedule is flexible.
• With only 17 samples, conclusions carry some uncertainty — treat these figures as directional rather than definitive.

30-day price trend

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

The full picture

The JFK–Seoul fare picture is strikingly compressed for a transpacific itinerary. With a median of $539 and a 75th percentile at exactly the same figure, the overwhelming majority of observed fares fall within a $6 band — $533 to $539. That's unusual. On most long-haul routes, the interquartile range spans $50 or more. What this tells you practically: there is no dramatic "right moment" to book on this route based on current data. The market appears to be pricing this corridor with consistency, and chasing timing gains may yield less than it would on more volatile routes.

That said, the $499 floor is real. Fares did dip that low in the snapshot window, about 7% under median. Those drops likely reflect brief promotional windows or seat-release cycles from carriers serving the route rather than any predictable weekly pattern — nothing in a 17-day sample is sufficient to identify reliable day-of-week trends with confidence. What we can say is that fares at or below $520 represent genuine bottom-quartile pricing, and being ready to book quickly when you see them is more reliable strategy than waiting for a specific weekday or advance-purchase window.

For booking horizon, transpacific routes to Seoul historically reward purchases made at least 6–10 weeks out, before inventory in cheaper fare buckets drains — but this dataset does not capture booking-lead-time variation directly, so that guidance is general context rather than data-derived. One honest caveat: with 17 snapshots, this analysis is directionally useful but statistically thin. A larger sample could reveal patterns — seasonal dips, carrier-specific sales — that aren't yet visible here.

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