Seattle → Shanghai flights

Budget $670 for Seattle–Shanghai, but $447 floor exists

Key takeaways

• Median fare is $672 across 17 daily snapshots of cheapest cached fares on this route.
• A $447 low was recorded — roughly 34% below the median — signaling genuine outlier deals do surface, though infrequently.
• The interquartile range is tight ($657–$783), meaning three-quarters of observed fares cluster in a $126 band; the floor fare is a real outlier, not a typical outcome.
• With a spread of 75% between the recorded low and high, price volatility on this route is substantial — passive monitoring or fare alerts are worth setting up.
• 17 snapshots were used for this analysis — a moderate sample; treat the low-end figure as directionally useful but not statistically guaranteed to recur.

30-day price trend

See full numbers and stats on the SEA → PVG price history page.

The full picture

The Seattle (SEA) to Shanghai Pudong (PVG) route shows a median fare of $672, with a 25th-percentile reading of $657 — meaning roughly a quarter of sampled fares came in at or below that level. That's a narrow gap between median and p25, which tells you that the "typical good deal" isn't dramatically cheaper than the midpoint. The real outlier here is that recorded $447 fare, which sits 34% below median. Those fares exist, but the clustering of prices between $657 and $783 across the majority of observations suggests they're uncommon windows, not the default expectation.

The 75% spread between the $447 low and $783 high is notably wide for a single route. That kind of range usually reflects a mix of advance-purchase inventory opening up at promotional prices, versus last-minute or peak-demand pricing at the upper end. On a long-haul transpacific route like SEA–PVG — typically 10–11 hours nonstop — fares tend to be most competitive when booked 6–10 weeks out for off-peak travel periods. Within the last two to three weeks before departure, prices on this corridor historically firm up as business travelers fill remaining seats. If the data window here captures both early and late booking snapshots, that would explain much of the spread.

No single dominant carrier is identifiable from this dataset, so carrier-specific fare patterns can't be responsibly cited. What the data does support: if you see a fare at or below $657 on this route, that's bottom-quartile territory and worth acting on. Fares above $750 represent the upper quartile and suggest either peak timing or a late booking window. One honest caveat: with 17 snapshots, this analysis is directionally sound but not large enough to make strong seasonal claims — if your travel dates fall during major Chinese holidays (Golden Week, Lunar New Year) or U.S. summer peak, expect the upper end of this range to be the norm, not the exception.

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