Route brief · SHA → MLE
Shanghai → Maldives
$588
−17% vs typical
seasonal median $705 · difference $117
Sep 9 – Sep 20 · 11 nights
Spring Airlines2 stops
- Usual monthly lows
- $641–$724
- Board rank
- Stronger than 45%
- Route sample
- 9 observed months
Cached fare — the booking search re-prices live before you pay.
Destination briefMLEMaldivesThe flight is the cheap part; guesthouses on local islands are what make this a real trip rather than a brochure.Best windowNov–AprAirportsVelana (MLE)All routes into MaldivesWhen this route gets cheap.
Cached-fare history: across 9 months, Sep is the cheapest for SHA → MLE. Best time to be there: Nov–Apr.
Fares bottom out in September around $588 and peak in June near $786 — a $198 spread across the 9 months we track. The cheapest itinerary we are tracking makes 2 stops and takes about 10.5 hours outbound, on a 11-night trip — ticketed under Spring Airlines, which on a connecting fare need not operate every leg. At $588 for 5,838 km each way, that works out to about $50 per 1,000 km flown. That is above the $39 typical of medium-haul fares here. Across the 8 departure cities we track at a similar distance from Maldives, this fare ranks 5th — 20% above the $492 from Athens. For context, the middle fare among the 7 routes of similar length we watch out of Shanghai is $510.
Cheapest day in the next 3 months: Sep 8 · $648 (11% below median)
Tap any day → live search
The median cached fare across this calendar is 1% higher than when tracking began on Aug 8 — $713 then versus $722 now, across 5 recorded snapshots. This is a calendar-level trend, so an individual deal above can be lower. The lowest single day we have seen here is $626, on Sep 12.
September 2026
October 2026
Cheapest in Sep · around $588
17% below the $705 typical fare
Cheapest round-trip fare found per month · Shanghai → Maldives · cached-price history
Route facts
- Airports
- Pudong (PVG) · Hongqiao (SHA) ↔ Velana (MLE)
- Flight time
- ~10.5 hours outbound
- Distance
- ~5,838 km each way
- Typical price
- $705 round-trip (seasonal median)
- Airlines on the board
- Spring Airlines
- Itineraries
- Connections on current fares
- Best months to visit
- Nov–Apr
SHA → MLE, answered.
Is $588 a good price for Shanghai to Maldives?
Only slightly. The seasonal median is around $705 round-trip and this fare is 17% under it, about $117. We do not call a drop notable until 20%, so this is an ordinary price for the route rather than a reason to hurry.
What is the cheapest month to fly from Shanghai to Maldives?
Across 9 months of cached-fare history, Sep comes out cheapest on this route. The best months to actually be in Maldives are Nov–Apr — when those overlap, that's your window.
How far in advance should I book SHA → Maldives?
We do not publish a number for this, because we cannot measure it yet. Answering it honestly means watching the same departure date on this route over many weeks as it approaches, and that archive is still filling up — so any "book N days ahead" figure here would be borrowed from somewhere else rather than measured. What we can measure is which month is cheap: across 9 months of cached fares, Sep comes out lowest on this route. See /guides/what-moves-a-flight-price/ for what does move a fare.
Are there nonstop flights from Shanghai to Maldives?
The current cheapest fares involve a connection, ticketed under Spring Airlines. Nonstop options exist on many dates at higher prices — check the live search for your exact dates.
Are these prices guaranteed?
No — these are cached fares found on real searches (this one on September 1). Airlines reprice constantly, so the booking search re-checks the live price before you pay. Fresher finds are far more likely to still be available.
Next step
Sleeping in Maldives?
Lock the flight first — then compare stays for Sep 9 – Sep 20 · 11 nights.
Browse hotels ↗
Missed it?
Cached fares expire. This route has a feed of its own — follow it and the next SHA → MLE drop reaches you as soon as we find it.
Follow SHA → MLE