I read that thread. Was JetBlue the only airline on which travelers were stuck? I thought that the trouble was the plane was in line for takeoff. At that point, there was nothing they could do, was there? Don't the airports set the rules about getting off planes once they've left the gate?
I sat next to a gal who had a friend on another plane and they were further up in the take-off queue. We got more status information by calling her friend on the cell than we got from our own crew. It was from her friend that we learned that the airport had closed and that planes were skidding around on the ice. This is not surprising because Delta can't even be bothered to announce which baggage claim to go to. But Delta wasn't about to let us off the plane. They showed us a movie and gave us water and snacks. Yippee. Folks were getting mighty irritable at the 3-hour mark.