Airlines rent gates from the airports, and pay for a set number of planes per day, per gate, the same with buying and landing or takeoff spot on the runway. Airlines try to schedule flights with know arrival and departure times, so will select a gate within their rented space based on the schedule.

In the United States and many other parts of the world, airlines generally do not "buy" or own their gates outright in a permanent real estate sense. Instead, they enter into complex, long-term lease agreements with the airport authority or the local municipality that owns the airport. These leases can be "exclusive use," where one airline has total control over the gate, or "preferential use," where an airline has first rights but must allow others to use it if it's idle. Some major carriers, however, do invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the construction and renovation of entire terminals (such as Delta’s investments at LGA or JFK). In these cases, the airline may effectively "own" the terminal’s operations for the duration of a multi-decade lease (often 30 to 50 years). At smaller or international airports, gates are more commonly "common use," meaning the airport assigns them to airlines on a flight-by-flight basis, allowing for maximum efficiency but giving the airlines less control over their branding and passenger experience.