World's busiest airport couldn't give world's biggest airliner a gate

More than 500 passengers aboard the first Qatar Airways flight to Atlanta flew 7,400 miles from Doha, Qatar, without incident, but during the final few hundred yards of their journey they got caught up in an international dustup between airline heavyweights. Here at the world's busiest airport -- with seven concourses and more than 200 gates -- a gate for the Super Jumbo Airbus A380 could not be provided. That forced Qatar Airways passengers to deplane Wednesday via mobile stairs and shuttle buses. Atlanta's airport has only one gate that can accommodate the A380 -- the world's largest airliner. The airport and resident hub carrier Delta said they could not make that gate available. The very public battle between Delta and competitor Qatar Airways represents a microcosm of the national debate over whether the amount of alleged government subsidies foreign airlines receive violates international Open Skies agreements. Hundreds of Qatar passengers were inconvenienced in Atlanta. Some wanted to know who to blame for not having a jetway where they could deplane. The airport and Delta blamed the airline for not giving enough notice that it was sending a Super Jumbo to an airport with only one gate that could handle such a big plane. "It is a part of the common use lease agreement that we have," said airport spokesman Reese McCranie. "We have to be given a certain amount of time when there is an equipment swap."<br/>Four to six Delta aircraft needed access to the A380 gate at the time the Qatar Airways plane requested access.<br/>