AFC Women's Asian Cup
After the highly successful 2023 Women’s World Cup, Australia hosted the next-biggest women’s football event held on Australian soil – the 2026 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women’s Asian Cup. As the event’s air travel partner, Stage and Screen managed flights for 12 international teams in a knockout tournament. This meant organising air travel when no team knew their next destination until the final whistle. Stage and Screen managed every flight, for every team, across every round, totaling 1,500 athletes, officials, and support staff.
Client Snapshot
For more than 13 years, Stage and Screen has been the travel management partner for Football Australia (FA), which oversees everything football, from grassroots participation to national teams. Stage and Screen manages FA’s domestic and international travel for competitions and team events, including the CommBank Matildas, whose run to the semi-finals of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup captured the hearts of the nation.
When Australia was awarded hosting rights for the AFC Women’s Asian Cup Australia 2026, Stage and Screen was selected to manage the air travel requirements for its Local Organising Committee.
The Challenge
As the tournament’s official air travel management partner, Stage and Screen didn’t handle the flights for just one team. It became the central coordination point for the entire tournament’s air travel, which spanned locations across Perth, the Gold Coast and Sydney.
This included coordinating every domestic flight sector, international arrivals and departures for 12 participating nations, travel for the Local Organising Committee’s head office team, and an enormous amount of baggage.
But the volume wasn’t the only challenge. The knockout format made advance planning almost impossible because a team’s next destination was unknown until they won or lost a match. In the knockout rounds, results could come in less than 24 hours before a team needed to travel, leaving Stage and Screen very little time to confirm flights for squads before the next match.
The Solution
To ensure the full scope of the Cup travel would be managed seamlessly, Stage and Screen began planning 12 months before the event. An Operational Team Leader was assigned to work closely with Football Australia on travel strategy from the outset, while 4 dedicated travel managers were brought in closer to the event – each responsible for a specific group of participating nations, ensuring every team had a single point of contact throughout.
Because there was little or no room for advance bookings, Stage and Screen developed contingency travel plans for every possible tournament outcome and worked closely with airline partners to secure capacity as the competition progressed. Travel Managers worked closely with Qantas to lock in seats at the best available rates. When results came in – sometimes late at night – Stage and Screen moved fast to confirm bookings.
The Outcome
Every team arrived where they needed to be, when they needed to be there, despite destinations changing in real time throughout the knockout stages.
Across 21 days of competition, Stage and Screen moved athletes, officials and support staff (totaling more than 1,500 travellers) between Sydney, the Gold Coast and Perth.
The 2026 Women's Asian Cup is a reminder of the hidden logistics behind elite international sporting tournaments, and what it takes to get them right. This event is to date one of the most complex and demanding travel programmes Stage and Screen has ever delivered, with its team of travel managers pulling off the near-impossible — adapting to real-time knockout results, last-minute changes and late-night confirmations.
Client Reaction
The Local Organising Committee recognised Stage and Screen’s massive achievement, a testament to the strength of the partnership between Football Australia, Stage and Screen, and their airline partners.
The Committee said:
“Your ability to deliver high-quality results with evolving requirements and timelines was a major asset to our operations. [We’ve] personally appreciated your reliability and the proactive way you managed our specific requirements. Partners like you are what make major events of this magnitude possible, while still maintaining a shred of sanity! Thank you for your contribution to the tournament’s success and for being so easy to work with throughout the process.”
Stage and Screen has the expertise and the network to manage travel at any scale. Find out how we can support your organisation today.
