San Francisco → Mumbai flights

SFO–Mumbai: target $403, but watch for dips to $331

Key takeaways

• $403 is both the median and the interquartile range (p25–p75), meaning most days the cheapest available fare landed exactly there.
• $331 is the floor recorded in this window — roughly 18% below median — suggesting meaningful deals do surface, just not often.
• $518 is the ceiling, so fares can run 28% above median during higher-demand periods.
• A 56% spread (low-to-high vs. median) is wide for a single route, indicating volatile pricing worth monitoring rather than booking impulsively.
• With p25 and p75 both at $403, the distribution is unusually compressed in the middle — most days offer one price, but outlier days at either extreme are real.

30-day price trend

See full numbers and stats on the SFO → BOM price history page.

The full picture

The San Francisco–Mumbai corridor is a long-haul route (roughly 9,000 miles, typically 17–20 hours with a connection) where fares in this 30-day snapshot clustered tightly around $403. The striking detail is that both the 25th and 75th percentiles sit at exactly $403, which means on a clear majority of sampled days, the cheapest cached fare was identical. This is not a route where gradual price erosion is visible day-to-day — it behaves more like a fare that holds at a carrier-set floor until inventory shifts cause a step-change in either direction.

That step-change can go both ways. The $331 low — recorded at least once in this window — represents a meaningful 18% discount from the median and is the number worth chasing if your travel dates are flexible. Conversely, the $518 high signals that waiting too long, particularly as departure dates tighten or demand spikes around Indian holidays and major U.S. travel periods, can push fares well above the norm. Given the compressed middle of the distribution, the practical advice is to set a fare alert at or below $370 and book promptly if that threshold is hit; don't expect gradual softening that rewards slow-walking the decision.

No dominant carrier was identifiable from this dataset, and day-of-week booking patterns cannot be responsibly inferred from 30 snapshots of cheapest-available fares alone. The honest caveat here is that a tight p25–p75 range around a single price point, combined with a 56% overall spread, suggests this route's pricing may be driven by a small number of promotional fares that appear and disappear quickly. If you see $331–$360, that is likely a limited-inventory fare worth acting on immediately.

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