The top-secret US airline that you're not supposed to know about

So who wants to go on a flight with an airline which sounds like it's named after your mother's elder sister? The quiet one who never married and lives in a bungalow just outside Droitwich with her two cats, Squiffy and Quiffy.

You haven't seen her since that family "party" in 2014 when there was that incident with the sherry and your dad said those dreadful things. I know, it's all in the past. Let's just move on, shall we?

I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you still recovering from New Year's Eve? You sound like you've been getting through the sherry yourself.

Let's not get off topic. I'm talking about Janet, the world's most mysterious carrier.

Nope, you're still making no sense whatsoever. I think you've come down with a debilitating case of the January Blues. Whoever heard of an airline called Janet?

Well, nobody, really. Or, at least, very few people. That's the point.

I'm still none the wiser. Are you really saying there's an airline called Janet?

Yes.

Stupid name for a business which flies planes, isn't it?

Well, it would be if it were simply that same name that you sometimes find attached to middle-aged women in Worcestershire. But it isn't. It's an acronym. It's "JANET". And it stands for - probably - "Just Another Non-Existent Terminal". Or it might be "Joint Air Network for Employee Transportation". To be honest, no-one has much of a clue.

Well that's even more stupid.

Tell that to the United States Air Force.

Why? Are they invading? Has Trump pressed his Big Button?

No. It's their airline.

All right, I'm intrigued. Why do those fly-guys, with their aviator shades and their highways to the danger zone, and their "you can be my wing man anytime" schtick, have their own airline? Don't they have enough planes to fly already?

Nice Top Gun references. Although Top Gun was about naval fighter pilots. Wrong branch of the US military.

Sorry. Do continue.

Thanks. Janet is a semi-secret airline run by the USAF...

Semi-secret? How can an airline be semi-secret? It's either a secret or it isn't.

Good point. But it's hard to be an entirely secret airline when your flights depart from one of the planet's busiest airports, located in one of its ritziest and most famous cities.

Luton? Leeds? Southampton?

Don't be snide. Janet's flights depart from McCarran International Airport - which, as all gamblers, stag parties and fans of fat Elvis tribute acts know well, is in Las Vegas.

Ooh, Sin City. That's not very inconspicuous. Can I go take a look?

Well, here's where it gets rather cloak-and-dagger. Janet has its own special section of the airport, the Gold Coast Terminal. It is a sizeable structure, with its own parking areas - but it is also kept wholly separate from the rest of the complex, guarded by men with radios and prominent guns. You don't want random members of the public walking in by mistake when they are on their way to see Elton John at Caesars Palace.

Which wouldn't be entirely impossible - weirdly, the terminal sits immediately behind the Mandalay Bay hotel. If you have a room on an upper floor on the east side of said Las Vegas Strip stalwart, you should be able to peer over the fence at the clandestine goings-on beyond. The terminal is visible on Google Maps. See the screen-shots below.

Great. Book me in for a stay at the Mandalay. What would I see?

A lot of to-ing and fro-ing. There are flights every day. They tend to be full of passengers, and they take off regularly during daylight hours. It's thought that these are commuter services taking US Air Force personnel to their jobs in top-secret locations.

Such as?

Most Janet flights stay in the state, and go north-west to the Nevada National Security Site - the military enclave which has been the subject of a million-billion conspiracy theories. Specifically, flights go to two airstrips within the NNSS - one at the Tonopah Test Range, one at Area 51. Janet services also go beyond Nevada - to, for example, Edwards Air Force Base in California and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. But it is the short-hop flights in the desert that form the crux of the airline's operations. Area 51 is 83 miles north-northwest of Vegas, Tonopah Test Range a further 70 miles to the northwest of a place which tends to get the more imaginative mind a-wandering.

How do you know the flights go there?

Because they aren't invisible. Even now-you-see-me-now-you-don't military airlines have to file flight plans which appear on radar. See the screenshot directly below. It shows flight WWW224 from Tonopah to Vegas. All Janet flights use a "WWW" prefix.

Remind me what Area 51 does?

No-one really knows. The CIA only officially acknowledged its existence in 2013. But it's a reasonable guess that it is used for the development and testing of state-of-the-art experimental military aircraft. The Tonopah Test Range, meanwhile, has also been used for test flights - American pilots trained against Russian MiG aircraft here in the Seventies and Eighties (1979-1988), in an operation that was codenamed Constant Peg.

You didn't mention aliens. Everyone knows Area 51 is about aliens and crashed UFOs. Did the US military get to you, man? Did they buy you off? I hope you got good money for your treachery, you filthy liar.

Chance would be a fine thing.

Come on man, tell me about the little green men...

All right. You've seen through me. I admit it. Area 51 is entirely staffed by aliens from Planet Squigon Snitch 47. They all live undercover in the suburbs of Las Vegas, and Janet takes them to work each day. All flights are flown on B-2 Spirit stealth bombers.

Really?!

No, you fool. Actually, Janet's fleet is oddly mundane. It consists of 11 aircraft - six Boeing 737-600s and five smaller executive turboprops (two Beechcraft 1900s and three Beechcraft 200Cs). The 737-600s are not even new. They all once belonged to Air China and were acquired by the US Air Force in 2008. Janet planes also have a distinctive livery - an all-white fuselage but for a single red horizontal stripe which runs around the middle of the aircraft. Focus in on Gold Coast Terminal on the Google Map and you can see this colour scheme on the planes waiting at the departure gates.

Oh. Well that's a bit of an anti-climax. Still, if it's a military airline flying secret and important people, it must have a flawless safety record...

Oddly, no. One of Janet's Beechcraft 1900s crashed on March 16 2004 as it neared the Tonopah Test Range. Records show the pilot had a heart attack on approach, having failed to declare his poor health to his employers. All five people on board were killed.

Can I fly with Janet? To quote your opening line: "So who wants to go on a flight with an airline which sounds like it's named after your mother's elder sister?".

Do you work for the United States Air Force? 

No.

Then no.

The first paragraph of this article is a bit misleading then, isn't it?

Yes. Sorry.

Oh. Well, are there any other airlines which have slightly old-fashioned women's names? A Kazakhstan low-cost carrier called "Pauline", perhaps? Does Dicky Branson have a quirky launch in the pipeline under the working title "Edith"?

That information is classified.