Unofficial Business: Delta, J-Lo and a bitter rivalry

That’s what Atlanta’s hometown airline did to the Fox Theatre after the nonprofit stumbled into ongoing global nastiness between Delta and Qatar Airways.

Allan Vella, the Fox’s chief executive, emailed me saying that he hopes to salvage the theater’s relationship with Delta, which has been one of its sponsors for more than 20 years helping with the costs of community programs.

Not happening, Delta’s legal chief Peter Carter told me. The airline announced it isn’t renewing its Fox sponsorship next year, and “we are not reconsidering at this point.”

Fox’s unforgivable transgression?

The theater, which raises money for its operations by providing space for private events, rented its facilities to Qatar (I never pronounce its name right) Airways, which wanted to throw a party.

Is this starting to sound like a middle school drama, only with Fortune 500 executives playing half the parts?

Fox officials neglected to promptly do what they said they intended, which was to give Delta a heads up about the booking. Instead, Delta executives learned about it when someone forwarded them a Qatar “save-the-date” announcement for a party at the Fox to celebrate the Middle East airline’s new nonstop Atlanta-Doha route.

“If I could go back and change that, I absolutely would,” Vella wrote me.

Now, of course Delta is free to donate – or not donate – as it chooses.

But the airline we take pride in has taken on the look of a petty bully.

Like when airport officials in Paulding County tried to create space for just a tiny new commercial passenger service in metro Atlanta. Delta worked to crush the attempt like behemoth squashing a mosquito on a 757's windshield.

A healthy, aggressive Delta is a very good thing for Georgia’s economy. But so is competition. And what we don’t need is a company so large and overbearing that it blocks significant rivals, whether they’re at the Fox or on a runway.

Delta is part of a group that claims Qatar Airways and two other Persian Gulf carriers are unfairly bankrolled by their home governments and as a result violate trade agreements and pose a significant threat to U.S. carriers. The rivals deny the accusations and say Delta and other American carriers have gotten federal backing and state tax breaks.

But the issue between Qatar and Delta executives looks like a cargo load of personal animosity.

That’s what Fox officials wandered into.

The theater was saved from demolition in the 1970s by a remarkable community outpouring that included “Save the Fox” bumper stickers and donations of pennies collected by local school children.

It’s listed as one of the nation’s top grossing theaters of its size. But it’s still tiny compared to Delta, which logged $4.5 billion in profit last year and operates more than 3,500 flights a day, which is close to as many seats as there are in the Fox.

So imagine what it was like when Delta’s head of marketing called and asked if the Qatar Airways event could be legally cancelled. It couldn’t, the Delta executive was told.

So the Middle Eastern airline threw a flashy launch party with lots of glam. Singer Jennifer Lopez performed. Atlanta’s mayor spoke and predicted a “special” relationship with the newcomer. Leaders of lots of local businesses and nonprofits attended.

Given the Fox slap down, I’m sure some attendees are wondering if Delta has it in for them, too.

My AJC colleague Kelly Yamanouchi asked Delta's Carter if the airline has a problem with its other partners or vendors doing business with Qatar. He said he hoped they would "want us to flourish as a company and would appreciate the kind of battle we're in with the Gulf carriers. But whether or not that means we would pull business, I just could never say."

I asked Carter if he was telegraphing a warning to not do business with the newcomer.

“We are not sending that message. We are not trying to threaten anybody with respect to anything,” he said.

It would be nice to believe that.