Janet (airline)

Janet, sometimes called Janet Airlines, is the unofficial name given to a highly classified fleet of passenger aircraft operated for the United States Department of the Air Force as an employee shuttle to transport military and contractor employees to Special Access Facilities ( SAPF). Its purpose is to pick up employees at their home airports and take them to their places of work. Then, they take the employees back to their home airports in the afternoon. The airline mainly serves the Nevada National Security Site (most notably Area 51 and the Tonopah Test Range) from a private terminal at Las Vegas's Harry Reid International Airport.

The airline's aircraft are generally unmarked but have a red cheatline along the aircraft's windows, which hints at Janet being the operator.

History

The fleet's "Janet" call sign is said to stand for "Just Another Non-Existent Terminal" or "Joint Air Network for Employee Transportation".

After the October 2017 Las Vegas shooting massacre, news surfaced that the shooter, in addition to firing at concertgoers, had also targeted aviation fuel tanks at nearby McCarran International Airport (now Harry Reid International Airport). Further reporting by the ''New York Post'' suggested a possible connection between the vulnerable fuel tanks and a classified Janet operation.

Operations

Due to the airline's secretive nature, little is known about its organization. It is operated for the USAF by infrastructure and defense contractor AECOM through AECOM's acquisition in 2014 of URS Corporation, which acquired EG&G Technical Services in 2002, as derived from URS's history of providing this service to the Air Force and job openings published by URS. For example, in 2010, URS announced it would be hiring Boeing 737 flight attendants to be based in Las Vegas, requiring applicants to undergo a Single Scope Background Investigation in order to be able to obtain a security clearance.Contractflygirl.blogspot.com – archived copy of URS Corporation job opening
More recently, AECOM has posted similar openings.Archive.org – Archived copy of AECOM Corporation job opening

Due to its secrecy, Janet airlines boards at a special part of Harry Reid International Airport. They board planes at the airport's west side, next to the Janet Airlines passenger parking lot. There is also a small terminal building for passengers.

Janet flights operate with a three-digit flight number and a ''WWW''-prefix.Flightaware.com – WWW224
page retrieved 21 February 2013 In the official publication of ICAO airline codes, this specific three-letter designator is listed as being blocked. The official airline callsign is simply Janet. However, the airline also uses different callsigns, called ''Groom Callsigns'' once transferred over to Groom Lake from Nellis control. The callsign name would change, and the callsign number will be the last 2 digits of the flight number +15. For example, if the callsign were Janet 412 and were transferred to Groom Lake control, the callsign would be something like "Bunny 27".

Destination codes

Due to the secrecy of the airline, Janet Airlines uses special codes for their destinations. They use this to mask the destination. KTKM is not an ICAO code for an airport, it is actually the code for Area 51. Not all codes are known. However, the following are listed:

Destinations

Janet destinations, mostly military, include:

Along with these destinations, there have been reports of Janet Airlines filing flight plans to many other airports.

Fleet

The first flights from Las Vegas to Area 51 were performed in 1972 by a Douglas DC-6 operated by EG&G. A second Douglas DC-6 was added in 1976 and this type remained in use until 1981.

As of mid-2015, the Janet fleet consists of six Boeing 737-600s painted white with a prominent red cheatline. The fleet is registered to the Department of the Air Force, while some earlier aircraft were registered to several civil aircraft leasing corporations. Before the arrival of the 737-600s, Janet operated Boeing 737-200s, some of which were modified from military T-43A aircraft. One of the 737-200s with registration N5177C in the 1980s was briefly based in Germany at Frankfurt International Airport (which was at the time also home to a USAF base, Rhein-Main Air Base), and operated by Keyway Air Transport, apparently a front company for a US government operation. It was retired on 6 March 2009. Together with the other 737-200s, it was sent to AMARG at Davis–Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona for storage.

All Janet 737-600 aircraft are ex-Air China and with the exception of N273RH and N365SR which were previously operated by the now defunct China Southwest Airlines before being acquired for US Air Force operations starting in 2008. The aircraft were initially taken to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base before being transferred to Las Vegas.

One aircraft, a Beechcraft 1900, was lost on 16 March 2004, when it crashed on approach for Tonopah Test Range Airport after the pilot suffered sudden cardiac arrest. Five people, including the pilot, were killed in the accident.

Accidents

References

External links

''Popular Science'' article
(archived fro

on September 24, 2006)





"U.S. government airline Janet hides in plain site"
news.com.au

Wendover Production Video

{{DEFAULTSORT:Janet Airlines
Harry Reid International Airport
Airlines based in Nevada
Companies based in Nevada
Military in Nevada
Military airlines
Nevada Test Site
1972 establishments in Nevada
United States Air Force
American companies established in 1972
Airlines established in 1972