DevilsPGD wrote:

But with regard to holding me on a plane for 7 hours against my
will, here we have a corporation (a legal person) interfering
with my liberty.

Say someone takes it to court and the court rules that people have
the unqualified right to leave whenever they want. Now what?

The court will aways factor in "reasonable expectations".

If I bought a ticket for a flight that I know will take, say, 4 hours to
complete, then it would be unreasonable for me to claim that at the
2-hour point in the flight that the airline is infringing on my liberty.

While in the air, it's clearly unreasonable to expect the airline to
stop the plane and let me out.

But while parked on the ground, during irregular operations, at a
non-regular airport, that's a whole other ballgame - one for which the
airlines shroud in more mystery than area 51. They are sacrificing my
liberty for the sake of some cost that only they know, a secret cost.

You're flying from city X to city Y, you've landed in city Z and
are stuck on a plane for 6 hours and decide to leave. What's
your next move?

A law needs to be passed that compels an airport (upon pain of massive
fine or criminal charge against airport manager) to positively respond
to a pilot's request to de-plane all passengers within 30 minutes of the
request being made to the ground control tower.

Another law needs to be passed that compels a pilot (upon pain of
massive fine, stripping pilot's flying license, criminal charge, or any
combination thereof) to request that the airport tow the plane to a gate
or direct the plane to a tarmak area and bring air-stairs to the plane
within 2 hours of the plane landing at the airport, or within 2 hours
after the plane has been fully boarded but has not yet taken off.

If the plane is still at the gate at 2 hours after scheduled departure
(regardless if all doors are closed or not) then the pilot must declare
the flight as cancelled and he must de-plane all passengers.

If a plane containing passengers is still on the tarmac 3 hours after
all passenger loading doors have been closed, or has been landed for 3
hours, then a third federal law would grant complete immunity (legal and
financial) to any passenger(s) that open any available exit or door on a
plane (emergency exit, regular door exit, etc) and who exit the plane
through said open exit and make their entrance into the airport terminal
through any available means. This law would make it a crime for the
crew to interfere with the passengers' attempt to open the exit doors
and disembark the plane and for airport staff to prohibit the passengers
re-entry into the airport terminal.