British Midland International, which is simply known as lowercase bmi, has acquired British Mediterranean Airways, an airline known across the pond as "BritMed."

The acquisition of BritMed gives bmi 17 new destinations, some to places I've never heard of. I'll take International Geography for $2,000, please, Alex.

New to the route map are Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Aleppo, Syria; Almaty, Kazakhstan; Amman, Jordan; Ankara, Turkey; Baku, Azerbaijan; Beirut, Lebanon; Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; Cairo; Dakar, Senegal; Damascus, Syria; Yekaterinburg, Russia; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Khartoum, Sudan; Tbilisi, Georgia; Tehran, Iran; and Yerevan, Armenia.

All of this is great news for bmi and fans of the second-busiest air carrier serving London's Heathrow International Airport. But unfortunately for locals who might want to try out these exotic destinations or may have business there, Las Vegas remains just another spoke on the bmi wheel.

Currently, it offers two flights a week to and from Manchester, England. Every October, the airline drops a third weekly flight, committing the aircraft instead to Antigua and Barbados in the Caribbean. The third weekly flight will return with the spring schedule change in March.

If you take the trans-Atlantic flight from Las Vegas on bmi, you'll land at Manchester, where you'd have to take a short hop to Heathrow to fly to one of those other destinations.

Not that using bmi is such a bad idea. The airline has introduced the new lie-flat bed seats in first class on its trans-Atlantic flights. In the Airbus A330 jets that bmi uses, there are 18 seats in that section that convert into beds.

When I spoke to bmi representatives who were in Las Vegas recently to promote the airline's new innovations, I was told that local reps are pleading with their bosses for the airline to add flights to McCarran because most of the planes go out with more than 90 percent of the seats filled — an extraordinary level for any market.

The new European Union agreement with the United States on "open skies" could offer bmi more options in the future, but the company has decided to take a wait-and-see approach to what its competitors are doing before making any commitments.

Whichever airline first offers nonstop flights between McCarran and Heathrow should see huge results.

Currently, Virgin Atlantic, Richard Branson's company, flies daily between Las Vegas and Gatwick International, London's secondary airport. MaxJet, an all-business class carrier, flies between McCarran and London's third airport, Stansted International.

British Airways, the dominant Heathrow player, flies nonstop to Houston, Phoenix, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco — but not Las Vegas.

Bmi isn't too worried about Las Vegas because it is a member of the Star Alliance, a partnership of airlines that books passengers seamlessly from Internet sites and allows customers to collect airline frequent-flier miles whenever they use a Star Alliance partner.

The key partner for bmi is United Airlines, the third-busiest carrier at McCarran. United has an average 39 flights a day between Las Vegas and the airline's hubs at San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and Washington's Dulles International.

United primarily flies to Las Vegas as Ted, the company's discount subsidiary. That annoys many of the company's high-end customers who fly business and first class because Ted flights don't have first-class sections. So, if they're accustomed to flying first class, they can't when they come to Las Vegas.

As far as bmi is concerned, United will be the way to get to Heathrow to connect with bmi's new flights. United has all kinds of nonstop flights to Heathrow from all the hubs accessible from McCarran except Denver, and next spring a Denver-London nonstop is on the schedule.

For now, if you want to fly directly from Las Vegas to points north of London — maybe on a golf package to St. Andrews, for example — then bmi would be a nice option. If you want to get to some of the new bmi destinations and collect frequent-flier miles on the airline, it's easier to take United to Heathrow to connect.

Zagat airline and airport surveys: The Zagat Survey results covering 84 airlines and 46 major airports is in, and several carriers serving Las Vegas finished high on the lists provided by New York-based Nina and Tim Zagat who offer many tourism-oriented guides.

Zagat Survey LLC conducts several studies on everything leisure-oriented from restaurants and resorts to music and movies several times a year.

On the domestic airline survey, 7,498 frequent fliers and travel professionals participated, 60 percent men and 40 percent women. Eight percent of the participants were in their 20s, 22 percent in their 30s, 23 percent in their 40s, 26 percent in their 50s and 21 percent 60 or older.

In most categories, Zagat divided the domestic airlines between premium and economy carriers — but some fit both categories. Focusing on comfort, service and food, one of the newest entrants in the industry, Virgin America, led the premium airlines in all categories and Midwest Airlines led all categories on the economy side giving those two airlines bragging rights in the overall rating.

On the premium airline side, Virgin was followed by Continental, AirTran, Alaska and Hawaiian for comfort; Alaska, Hawaiian, Continental and AirTran for service; and Continental, Hawaiian, Alaska and United for food.

Among economy carriers, Midwest was followed by JetBlue, Virgin America, Frontier and Alaska for comfort; Virgin America, JetBlue, Frontier and Southwest for service; and Virgin America, JetBlue, Continental and Hawaiian for food.

Under a separate category of best Web site, the top five were Southwest, JetBlue, Continental, Virgin America and American. In a category for timeliness, the top five were Southwest, Continental, JetBlue, American and United.

Among international carriers, airlines serving McCarran received a few mentions. In overall ratings, Virgin Atlantic tied for second with Cathay Pacific, trailing Singapore Airlines among premium carriers, while Virgin Atlantic and Korean Air tied for sixth among economy carriers.

Canada-based WestJet tied for second in the economy class for comfort, with Virgin Atlantic tied for fifth in the category and Korean tied for seventh.

For service, Virgin Atlantic tied for third among premium carriers and tied for ninth among economy carriers with Korean Air. WestJet tied for second in the category.

For food, Virgin Atlantic tied for third among premium airlines and tied with Korean for third among economy fliers.

In the best Web site category among international carriers, Virgin Atlantic and Continental tied for first, American was tied for fourth, Alaska and WestJet were tied for sixth and Delta Air Lines finished 10th.

In the survey on airports, McCarran finished far lower than I would have expected. Of 27 domestic airports, McCarran ranked 17th in overall quality, with Tampa International Airport in Florida topping the list. Following Tampa and ahead of Las Vegas were airports in Denver; Minneapolis; Orlando, Fla.; Detroit; Baltimore; Washington (Reagan National); Charlotte, N.C.; Seattle; San Francisco; Chicago (Midway); Houston (George Bush); Dallas-Fort Worth; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; San Diego; and Phoenix.

Trailing McCarran were Atlanta; Newark, N.J.; Chicago (O'Hare); Boston; Washington (Dulles); New York (JFK); Philadelphia; Los Angeles; Miami; and New York (LaGuardia).

McCarran fared well in delays experienced (ranking ninth), leisure amenities (15th), and domestic U.S. and international travel experience (16th on each), but lagged on passenger security (18th), business amenities (20th) and food options and quality (23rd).