National Football League owners' decision last week to award the 2012 Super Bowl to Indianapolis, rather than Arizona, might have a silver lining.

It gives Valley aviation authorities at least another year to figure out whether they can minimize problems that left the planes of Super Bowl XLII high rollers sitting on the tarmac at Scottsdale Airport for more than six hours.

Big names in the professional-football world, treated to a weekend of exclusive parties and perfect Arizona weather, left town Feb. 4 - the Monday after the NFL championship game - furious at delays that kept their private jets waiting for permission to take off.

It was a nightmare that some say couldn't be avoided, or if it could, no one would like the solutions.

NFL owners decided after four rounds of voting Tuesday to award the 2012 Super Bowl to Indianapolis, rather than Arizona or Houston.

Arizona's Super Bowl Host Committee President Bob Sullivan said he doubted that memories of the airport snafus would affect decisions.

"We have no indication that would be a factor," Sullivan said.

Even with the year of planning that preceded this year's game, airport and aviation officials agree they couldn't have controlled the storm that blew in the morning afterward and slowed travel.

They disagree, however, on how much air-traffic controllers could have done to more efficiently manage the hundreds of departures.

FAA reply unsatisfying

Finger-pointing over the delays went as high as the office of U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, whose help was sought in pushing the Federal Aviation Administration for an explanation.

The FAA's response dissatisfied the Scottsdale Airport Advisory Commission.

"Somebody blew the whole thing," said Commissioner Arthur Rosen, a pilot active in the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. "Basically, I don't want it to occur again."

The busy Super Bowl weekend was made even busier by the fact that two East Coast teams, the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, made the Feb. 3 NFL championship game and brought with them a fan base used to traveling by corporate and private jet.

The FBR Open golf tournament, which ended in Scottsdale on Super Bowl Sunday, also added to the jet glut.

After the big game ended at Glendale's University of Phoenix Stadium, more than 500 private aircraft left airports Valley-wide from 10:30 p.m. Sunday to 3 a.m. Monday. At most, they experienced a two-hour wait, FAA officials said.

Problems hit just hours later.

The storm system that had threatened to blow in at game time appeared Monday with the low ceilings, intermittent rain and ice that make flying trickier.

1 runway, lots of flights

Scottsdale's one-runway airport normally can handle almost 25 departures an hour. At that rate, the 211 aircraft that left Scottsdale Airport beginning at 6 a.m. Monday could have been cleared by 2:30 p.m., but delays, and the more than 80 landings, stretched departures out to 8 p.m.

"When you have hundreds, if not thousands, of flights wanting to leave a small area at the same time, there are going to be delays," FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said.

Delays also were inevitable, the FAA said, because the storm forced airports to switch from allowing pilots to fly by visual flight rules to requiring instrument flight rules. Used during conditions of low visibility, the instrument rules require more space between aircraft and more time between takeoffs and landings.

Scottsdale departures also had to be fitted into the flow of hundreds of departures from Sky Harbor, Gregor said. And, the FAA said, pilots contributed to the problem by unnecessarily filing multiple flight plans or filing incorrect departure routes.

Owner reportedly miffed

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft reportedly raised hell after his jet was among those long delayed at Scottsdale. Patriots spokesman Stacey James said he never heard of the delay and said Kraft would not comment on factors weighing in his decision for or against a 2012 game in Arizona.

"I won't disagree with the weather," Scottsdale Aviation Director Scott Gray told the Scottsdale Airport Advisory Commission last week. "But it doesn't explain why we had a 6 1/2-hour delay and Deer Valley had a three-hour delay."

They say the Deer Valley Airport got its 80 departures going with no more than a 3 1/2-hour delay.

Deer Valley spokeswoman Julie Rodriquez said the two-runway airport, which along with Sky Harbor and Goodyear Airport is part of Phoenix's Aviation Department, got no complaints from pilots.

"Overall, we, the Phoenix Aviation Department, were happy with the way the FAA did its job during the Super Bowl at all three of our airports," she said. "It was a very busy time, delays were expected, and the weather also was a factor."

Part of the yearlong planning put the Scottsdale and Deer Valley airports in their own air-traffic-control sector and separated Goodyear and Glendale airports into their own sector over Super Bowl weekend. At times when the Goodyear and Glendale airports weren't busy, that sector's controller was able to handle Deer Valley departures independent of Scottsdale, Gregor said.

Airport officials suggest that for future events, Scottsdale and Deer Valley be split into their own airspace, each with its own air-traffic controller. But the FAA's Gregor said last week that a separate Scottsdale sector would not be feasible given the limited airspace and Scottsdale Airport's proximity to Sky Harbor and Deer Valley airports.

'Slotting' a possibility

Airport officials hope they do not have to turn to one possible solution, a so-called slotting program under which pilots receive specific departure times. Corporate-jet passengers, who typically pay big bucks expecting to come and go as they please, would have to give up that freedom under this scenario. Some likely would not fly into an airport that implemented such a system, one pilot said.

The FAA's Gregor agreed that slotting programs are unpopular and, in good weather, less efficient. Unused slots go to waste when pilots fail to cancel them, and pilots' tendency to reserve multiple slots exaggerates delays, he said.