So as to offer a counterpoint to everyone's really great suggestions, I will talk about what we do.
We are a big team with a lot of students and a lot of mentors and accommodating everyone's schedule means that we almost never fly as a single group. Instead, we split up into 6 or 8 or 10 smaller groups and grab as many different flights as we need -- different times, different days, etc. We often have one or more mentors with each group, but we've had students fly on their own, too -- with the permission of their parents, of course.
It's much easier for me to manage a small number of kids than it would be to move through the airport as a swarm of people. I miss a bit of the fun we had when I worked with other teams that traveled together, but the flexibility it affords my schedule is also really awesome.
We've only lost one kid so far and we got him back after not too long.
He fell asleep and missed a connection, so we rebooked him and met him at the airport in, incidentally, San Antonio.