Cape Town (CPT) to Shanghai (SHA): 8,048 miles (12,951 km) great-circle, about 16h 35m nonstop by our estimate. Cheapest fare observed: $893 round-trip on Qatar, with 1 stop, departing May 12, 2026.
$893 round-trip, Qatar QR1372, departing 2026-05-12 at 19:30, returning 2026-05-26. The recorded itinerary left on a Tuesday, returning on a Tuesday 14 nights later; the fare was observed 17 days before departure. "Book this flight" opens Kiwi.com with the same airline and dates.
At $893, it ranked 22nd of the 30 round-trip fares we recorded from CPT (median $794). That is 11.1 cents per great-circle mile (round-trip price over one-way distance), below the CPT median of 28.3 cents across 30 round-trip routes.
Routes from CPT of similar length: New York (7,805 mi) at $1096 and St. Petersburg (6,513 mi) at $986.
Qatar had the cheapest fare on 9 of 30 CPT routes. It is the longest of the 30 routes we track from CPT.
Of 32 departure airports with a fare to Shanghai, Cape Town (CPT) ranked 27th at $893. Lowest: $183 from Seoul (ICN); highest: $1810 from Buenos Aires (EZE); 11 nonstop. Cheapest-fare airlines (routes): Spring Airlines (5), AirAsia (3), China Eastern (3), Air China (2), Qatar (2) and Xiamen Airlines (2), plus 15 more.
Travelpayouts fares (cheapest per route, observed April 25, 2026); OurAirports coordinates and elevations; IANA zones Africa/Johannesburg, Asia/Shanghai; flight time is our estimate.