As for defecting you can forget that, these athletes are North Korea's elite and they dont see the grubby west as some golden utopia.
Which translated into plain English means: "Their families are not starving, unlike most of the civilian population, hence they are not desperate enough to defect". Besides the fact that they have surely all been hand-picked to be highly coercible, by threats to their families and similar measures. You can be sure there will be not one single athlete who stands to lose nothing by defecting.
Some East Germans got to travel to the West way back then too, but only a small portion of them did defect. I'm sure Korean authorities can be even more persuasive than the former Stasi.
To get back on topic, I don't think that North Korea considered even for a second to schedule a direct flight to the West. The athletes might not be at high risk of defection, but what if the whole crew did defect upon arrival? That would make getting the plane back a bit tricky.
Ciao,
Dg800