Air travelers making wisecracks about that piece of luggage that vanished never to return can check the Terminal C parking deck atrium at Raleigh-Durham International Airport for a punch line.

A swooping flock of 15 geese, fashioned from Samsonite luggage, jiggles and bobs on cables 20 feet off the ground.

The $56,000 sculpture is in perfect formation thanks to a former Southwest Airline baggage handler who was laid off in September.

"This is the last of the romance of travel," Dunne Dittman says of his airborne pieces crafted from the Samsonite "Streamlite" model line, which was popular from the 1940s through the '60s. In those decades, long-distance travel evolved from an experience for the elite into a mass production process for everybody.

"The birds are my way of expressing the natural versus the mechanical," he says.

During his 19 years with Southwest, Dittman collected vintage luggage, spruced it up and passed it along to friends, who displayed it in their homes. About four years ago, he approached the RDU Airport Authority with an idea to give his luggage wings. A prototype was approved. "Earlier Flight" landed in the parking deck atrium April 16.

"Most of the cost was the installation," which required two days and a crane, Dittman says.

On the second day of the installation, Dittman was wandering around the roped-off area in a hard hat when he struck up a conversation with a traveler. "This is ingenious," the traveler said. "I had one of these bags. The artist is a genius."

Five minutes later another traveler weighed in: "They paid an artist for this ... thing?"

"It was wonderful," Dittman says. "I do want to hear both sides."

Recently, Jennifer Davidson, 24, offered a more balanced opinion as she came to Raleigh from her current residence in Orange County, Calif. "They're cool," she said, "very fitting."

Dittman, a 42-year-old Durham resident, is a beefy-shouldered, bull-necked man. His receding hair is in a buzz cut that matches the buzz of his energy. He loved the people and the bustle of handling bags at Southwest, he says, but it "didn't let me expand my mind as it should have."

As simple as it looks, the sculpture is something of a brain stretcher for attention to mechanical detail. Each piece of luggage is held open by a steam-bent frame of poplar plywood. Stainless-steel back and wings are fixed atop the frame with eight brass nuts, while more stainless steel fills out the belly, neck and head of the geese.

Each bird hangs from two eye bolts, which permit the bird to rock sideways from the breezes and tremors of the parking deck. Two beams 85 feet apart are suspended from the parking deck from which a 47-foot wide maze of cables float.

Dittman squeegeed an epoxy finish on the luggage's leather-like vinyl.

Vintage steamer trunk stickers from the likes of Hotel Cairo and Hotel Israel were snagged off eBay, copied and slapped onto the luggage for a whiff of the romantic past. An "RDU" sticker in block letters gives the Triangle a boost.

Being handy is a Dittman family trait. His father, a scientist researching the effects of space travel on the body, sculpted leather as a hobby during Dittman's childhood in Houston.

The layoff from Southwest gives him "the freedom to really pursue my art," says the divorced father of two. Dittman hopes to "shop this around" and land a commission at another transportation terminal. He has plenty to work with in his current collection of more than 50 pieces of luggage, some of which have coverings of leather, alligator, elephant and tweed.

The space in cruise ship terminals would be fitting for a sea bird motif, he says. The bare, multi-story walls of airports are also excellent candidates for projects. And he hopes the days of painting large canvases of hot rods for game rooms in private homes are over.

"I want to ride the tail of the goose ... sell more art," Dittman says.