You keep accusing the OP of accusing B6 of being "out to get them". Enough with the straw man arguments, the OP simply says he expects to get treated with some respect, and not just as if he were cargo waiting for transport. I think in the aftermath of the JFK fiasco it's clear that B6 could have done lots of things better, and the OP cites many of them. Things happen, sure, but the mark of a good customer service company is how they handle the things that happen. I don't see the other airlines getting pilloried for what happened there, because they handled things differently. B6 was either incompetent or did not care about the suffering of their passengers stuck out on the tarmac hours after it was clear that the plane wasn't going anywhere then, and would not be going to TPA when it finally did go somewhere. The move then is to get an empty plane out of the way and get those passengers into the terminal. Or pull up some stairs and put them on busses. Or something. That's the smart thing to do, and it's the humane thing to do, and B6 didn't do it. Simple as that. The fact is that it was more convenient to leave them out in the plane, locked up like cattle (or worse). If they brought them back they would actually have to provide some customer service. Heaven forbid.

I'm never taking B6, that's for sure. It's not worth the risk.

Poor Performance
 

It sounds like the airline performed poorly and it could have been any airline. The airlines should have detailed contingency plans in place to handle "worse case scenarios" like total mega ice storms at JFK. The only reason I can see they didn't have sufficient contingency plans was to save a buck. There are also reports that B6 took a long time before it asks the NY Port Authority for help evacuating the planes. They could have gotten the fire department to help evacuate the planes.

The carriers may also be negligent in trying to keep operations going, and not precancelling enough flights. I mean, I don't work in airline ops, and I know during a blizard there is no way they can operate 100% of the schedule. Maybe 20% if their lucky. So cancel 80% of the flights 12 hours early.

While I agree someone on Flyertalk for a while knows that it will be crazy flying in a storm, an infrequent traveler doesn't know this. I absolutely feel the airlines don't provide enough admonitions and warnings to the public about flying during storms. They should post on their web site that they don't recommend people fly except the most hardy travelers, and to expect chaos and to rebook. But the airlines, on their web site, would make the naive believe that it will be sort of a normal operation. The airlines also failed to provide meals and other ameneties and they barely provided drinks.

But again all too often the airlines are naively optemistic and they don't pre cancel enough, and they don't warn travelers about the experience of when a hub goes in to chaos because they have inadequate plans to meet the needs of thousands of stranded customers that they brought to the hub.

I mean I could have watched the tv weather, and I would have known it would have made more sense to cancel the flights 12-24 hours early. It was not like the storm was not forecast to come.

i'd be interested in learning more about your time machine :)