COMING AND GOING

ATA Cutting Flights

BUSING IT

He Got the Message

CoGo was just settling in on a Vamoose bus trip from New York to Washington last Sunday when the driver pulled the fully loaded vehicle to a stop at the congested entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel and refused to go farther if two riders weren't removed. Their crime: They had asked him to stop text messaging at the wheel.

While the other passengers jammed the popular budget bus company's customer service lines seeking help, the driver told a New York City police officer that he felt threatened by the couple , a complaint the cop dismissed after questioning them. Forty minutes later, the pair broke the impasse by gathering their belongings and leaving the bus. Six fellow riders joined them.

As the driver steered his remaining 48 passengers safely to Bethesda and then Arlington, Betty Lin of Arlington gathered 20 names and e-mails on a petition of complaint ."I expressed our frustration, how we were all stupefied by the driver's actions and felt the couple had a completely valid complaint, and we were put in a very unnecessary . . . situation," she said.

By Monday, the driver was out of a job, and Vamoose was offering apologies and free rides to the disgruntled passengers.

"The point of the story for us," said Florence Bluzenstein, wife of Vamoose bus company president Sam Bluzenstein, "is not that [the driver] was doing something legal or illegal, because that's between him and the police. It's that he didn't treat our customers the way we demand that the drivers treat our customers. Because our business is built on customer service."

William Torres Jr., manager of DC Trails, the Lorton company that contracted to supply the driver for that run, said the driver was fired for failing to notify the company about the situation ."Anytime there's a problem with the bus, he's supposed to notify them, and that never happened," said Torres, who added that the complaining passengers were within their rights: "Our drivers are not supposed to be on the phone or do anything involving the phone while driving a vehicle."

Text messaging while driving a vehicle, incidentally, is legal in New York City.

What should you do if you see your bus driver behaving in a way you feel is unsafe? If it's urgent, speak up. Less urgent? Better to call than criticize, recommends Florence Bluzenstein, who says someone will answer Vamoose's toll-free number, 877-393-2828, whenever the buses are on the road.

UPRIGHT AND LOCKED

ATA Cutting Flights

As Roberta Albers of Alexandria discovered by chance, ATA Airlines will cease flights from Reagan National to Chicago's Midway as of Nov. 29 . Those flights now connect to dozens of destinations on ATA and partner Southwest.

ATA also will reduce the number of flights between Midway and New York's LaGuardia as of Dec. 1 and will discontinue the service Jan. 7. The cuts are due to " intense competition and cascading fares; [the routes] are just not profitable," said ATA spokeswoman Maya Wagle. She said the airline will contact passengers and offer refunds or attempt to accommodate customers on Southwest flights.

Southwest should be able to accommodate displaced ATA passengers via Baltimore or Dulles, Southwest spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger said.

Albers, who was to fly ATA to Chicago, then Southwest to Portland over the December holidays, said an ATA rep told her that "my itinerary was in a queue to be handled as soon as possible. He had no information on when that would be." But on the third call she insisted on talking to a supervisor, who said he would flag her record for urgent handling. The next day she got a call that Southwest would rebook her within two weeks.