The guy's got guts.  No doubt about that.

Miami-based flight attendant Gailen David has shirked the confines of career-protecting political correctness and now openly mocks his airline employer.  His series of internet videos have garnered a serious come-back-for-more audience, mostly to indulge in his lead character, The Aluminum Lady. 

Think Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher channeling Dame Edna, add some syrupy, saccharine Southern drawl, and cast her as a cutthroat, backstabbing airline boss.  Aluminum Lady is pretty funny, if you like a little gallows humor.

But American Airlines is not laughing.

Granted, a legacy airline in bankruptcy, about to lay off 13,000 of its workforce, has little to laugh about.

But is an employee's clever irreverence a firing offense? I'm struggling with that one; I can argue both sides.

Maybe the larger question is, why isn't anyone at American thinking out-of-the-box on this one.  What if some of the brass embraced David's creativity, teamed up with him to change the public face of stuffy corporate correctness and impersonal bureaucracy?

Throughout its troubles and bankruptcy filing, American has crafted its image with public relations outsourcing.  We in the media and the airlines' own employees ask questions and, instead of human being answers, get carefully worded, cliche "statement" responses shrouded in PR puffery. 

As a traveler, I would appreciate knowing an airline taking painful steps to become profitable is willing to acknowledge truth in jest.  There is something very humanizing about the ability to laugh at yourself.

What if, instead of considering consequences for David's irreverent form of free speech, the airline embraced it, even turned it to their advantage?

David is still employed, though his two-year medical leave is about to end and American will have options to play about his future.

So is he an insubordinate showboater biting the hand that feeds him?

Or a creative jokester with a rebel streak just trying to keep up team morale?

What do you think?

Click here to watch the videos.