Janet 737 airliners at McCarran

Are you a Las Vegas-based flight attendant looking for work and able to keep a secret(s)? Do you feel positively about working for an airline that sort of doesn’t exist? Happen to have a Top-Secret clearance with the U.S. government, or think you could snag one?

If so, the perfect job just opened up.

Janet, a classified airline that runs commuter flights to some of the most secretive and closely guarded government facilities in the U.S., appears to be hiring a flight attendant. The job posting appeared recently on the website for AECOM, which operates a small fleet of aircraft out of a discreet but heavily guarded terminal at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.

Very little is known about Janet, which is so secretive that the U.S. government does not admit that it exists. The planes use the call sign “Janet,” which some suggest stands for “Just Another Non-Existent Terminal.”

The airline operates a fleet of white Boeing 737-600s, with a prominent red stripe down the middle of the fuselage. It also likely operates a smaller fleet of commuter-sized turboprops, also white but with a blue stripe. Passengers flying into or out of Las Vegas often can see such planes parked out on the ramp in the middle of the day — if they know what to look for.

Where exactly they fly to, other than Las Vegas, has been the subject of debate and speculation. The jets have long been assumed (and have been seen on rare occasion) to be flying workers to and from an airstrip inside Area 51, as well as to several military bases and secret locations throughout the western U.S.

But while the destinations may be classified, the prerequisites for the carrier can be seen on the job posting.

Among other items, the posting says applicants “must be level-headed and clear thinking while handling unusual incidents and situations (severe weather conditions, including turbulence, delays due to weather or mechanicals, hijackings or bomb threats).”

Another prerequisite: “Active Top Secret Clearance Highly Desired.”

The fleet is operated for the United States Air Force to transport military and contractor employees. It mainly serves the Nevada National Security Site (most notably Area 51 and the Tonopah Test Range), from their terminal at Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport.

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 Top Secret security clearance. More recently, AECOM has posted similar openings.

In the photo below Area 51 is inside the red circle.

For the last sixty four years the US Air Force has been playing Santa Claus to some 20,000 people inhabiting dozens of tiny Micronesian islands spread across a vast area in the western Pacific Ocean. Each year in December, these islanders receive all sorts of gifts and useful supplies packed in approximately a hundred crates and dropped gently to earth on green military parachutes. Known as Operation Christmas Drop, this effort on the part of the United States Air Force has been called the “longest running humanitarian mission in the world.”

Operation Christmas Drop has its roots to the Christmas of 1952, when the crew of an Air Force B-29 aircraft, flying a mission to the south of Guam, saw some of the islanders waving at them. In the spirit of the season, the crew gathered some items they had on the plane, placed them in a container, attached a parachute and dropped the bundle to the islanders below.

An airman of the US Air Force pushes a bundle from a C-130 Hercules during Operation Christmas Drop over Guam on Dec. 5, 2016. Photo credit: U.S. Air Force/Senior Airman Delano Scott

A witness to the first drop on the island recalls, “We saw these things come out of the back of the airplane and I was yelling: ‘There are toys coming down’”. The effort grew from there into a major annual training exercise.

All the gifts are donated by residents, civic organizations, military personnel and businesses of Guam, which are collected by private organization and the US Air Force, and then sorted and packed into boxes. The items sent to the Micronesian include fishing nets, construction materials, powdered milk, canned goods, rice, coolers, clothing, shoes, toys, school supplies and so on.

The Air Force uses old parachutes that have outlived their military usefulness, but are still strong enough to support bundles weighing up to 500 pounds. The parachute is said to be the most important item on the bundle. Islanders use it for a variety of applications, from roofing their houses to covering their canoes.

Some of these islands are so remote that they receive supplies from passing ships only once or twice per year.

“Christmas Drop is the most important day of the year for these people,” said Bruce Best, a communications specialist at the University of Guam who has been volunteering his time to help Operation Christmas Drop for the last 34 year.

“The yearly success of this drop is a testament to the generosity of the civilian and military population of Guam,” said U.S. Air Force sergeant and Operation Christmas Drop committee president. “We continue to do this to help improve the quality of life of the islanders. We may take it for granted that we can go to a mall to purchase our daily needs, but these folks do not have the same privilege from where they live.”

In recent years, the US Air Force has received assistance from members of the Royal Australian Air Force and Japan Air Self-Defense Force in the collection and distribution of the Christmas Drop crates. According to organizational data, by 2006, the Christmas drop operations have delivered more than 800,000 pounds of supplies.

A bundle exits the ramp of a C-130H aircraft during an airdrop mission over the Federated States of Micronesia during Operation Christmas Drop 2013.

A resident of Mokil Atoll waves to the C-130 crew after receiving an air dropped aid package in 2012

Loadmasters from the 36th Airlift Squadron, Yokota Air Base, Japan, prepare humanitarian aid bundles destined for remote islands within the Micronesian Islands, Dec. 11, 2012.

Senior Airman Angel Torres, 36th Airlift Squadron C-130 Hercules loadmaster, pushes a low-cost, low-altitude bundle drop over the Federated States of Micronesia during Operation Christmas Drop 2016.