Well, no, they (the electrons) don't need to go anywhere, they just "gather" on one side (the positive).
Airplanes aren't grounded, and they're cited on the wiki as an example of a Faraday cage that protects its contents (passengers) from sudden charges (lightning strikes).
Thinking out loud (which is almost always a mistake -- I liken it to chewing with one's mouth open), I would think that if it works for highly localized DC-ish potential transients, this should extrapolate rather readily to AC.
I'm going to just get some slabs of metal and jumper them together and see what it does. Or maybe I'll just bring in my Singlepower Supra++, as that has a metal casing.