“The demand for business group flights has been growing for years.” Teams are travelling together more often for events, incentives, and international meetings. On the surface, that sounds straightforward. In reality, organizing group flights has become one of the most complex parts of travel.
“Booking an individual ticket is easier than ever,” says Delina Keijzer, Senior Project Manager Group Travel at ATPI. “But as soon as you’re dealing with ten or more travelers, you’re playing by a completely different set of rules.”
Airlines treat group bookings as a separate market. “The moment ten seats are blocked, the commercial risk for an airline increases,” Delina explains. “That’s why you see higher fares, stricter conditions, and limited availability, even when the same flight still shows plenty of seats online.” Short option periods, early name deadlines, and varying airline policies only add to the pressure, especially for organizations that don’t manage group travel on a regular basis.
It’s also where many companies underestimate the impact. “What looks like a simple flight booking quickly becomes a logistical puzzle,” Delina says. “Flights need to line up perfectly with transfers, hotels, meeting schedules, and on-site programs. One small change can have an effect across the entire trip.”
That fragility is what makes group travel so sensitive to disruption. A delayed or cancelled flight doesn’t just affect one traveler; it affects everyone. As Delina puts it: “Clients often tell us, ‘We want certainty, not late-night calls because a flight changed.’ And that’s completely understandable.”
At ATPI, group travel specialists work within airline group systems every day, across low-cost carriers with strict payment terms and full-service airlines with tightly controlled group capacity. “It’s about knowing where flexibility still exists, where it doesn’t, and how to manage the risk without losing sight of the bigger picture,” Delina says.
As airline group policies continue to tighten, structure and predictability are becoming the real success factors in group travel. Not to oversimplify a complex process, but to make it workable. And ultimately, to make sure teams arrive together, on time, and focus on what they came to do.
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