vJANET Airlines

About JANET Airlines

Janet and Janet Airlines are unofficial names of a highly classified fleet of passenger aircraft operated for the United States Department of the Air Force as an employee shuttle to transport military, DoD civilians, and contractor employees to Special Access Program Facilities (SAPF). The airline mainly serves the Nevada Test and Training Range (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 aside from a red cheatline along the aircraft's windows.

As of 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. 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 were acquired from Air China, and four were previously operated by the now-defunct China Southwest Airlines before being acquired for USAF operations starting in 2008. The aircraft were initially taken to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base before being transferred to Las Vegas.

Due to the airline's secretive nature, little is known about its organization. It is presently operated for the USAF by defense contractor Amentum through the company's acquisition of AECOM's defense contracting ventures. Originally the service was operated by EG&G, and later URS Corporation

Janet flights operate with a three-digit flight number and a WWW-prefix. In the official publication of ICAO airline codes, this specific three-letter designator is listed as being blocked. The primary airline callsign is simply "Janet," though flights transition to alternate callsigns, called Groom Callsigns once transferred over to Groom Lake from Nellis control. The name typically changes, and the number will be the last 2 digits of the flight number +15.