The Airline of Area 51

If you’re ever flying out of McCarren International Airport in Las Vegas, take a look at some of the planes flying out with you. You may spot one that looks like any other but doesn’t have any markings. It’s an airline that you can’t book a flight with, but it’s real and very secret.

This secret airline consists of nondescript, white planes that ferry civilian contractors from Las Vegas McCarren Airport to China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, and the place known as Area 51, the top-secret base of the U.S. Air Force. The fleet is unofficially known as “Janet Airlines.”

Janet Airlines is run by a private defense contractor called AECOM, though the aircraft are the property of the U.S. Air Force. The reason the airline is called Janet is largely unknown, though unofficially, it has come to mean “Just Another Non-Existent Terminal” or “Joint Air Network for Employee Transportation.” No one knows for sure. The airline became known as Janet Airlines because JANET is the callsign the aircraft use when flying into and out of Las Vegas.

The airline operates daily flights direct from a terminal at McCarren airport using Boeing 737–600 aircraft. The planes are white with a red stripe running down the side, and they carry about 190 people. In addition to the 737s, the airline operates…