Romney and Area 51...no really! Did I leave out Meg Whitman and Erik Prince (Blackwater)?

Financial TImes story on Key Airlines

The first leg of Mitt Romney’s journey to a private equity fortune ran between Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas and the Tonopah Test Range, deep in the Nevada desert. In the mid-1980s Tonopah, also known as Area 52, was home to the newly developed, top secret F-117A stealth fighter. Pilots and support personnel lived in Las Vegas and spent their working week in the desert.

The partners sent a team of Bain employees, including Meg Whitman, then in her mid-20s and today the chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, to check it out. Key was small but generated stable cash flows. In addition to the Tonopah contract, it serviced aircraft that passed through Salt Lake City, operated an air ambulance and ran a Cessna dealership.

Bain Capital sold Key Airlines in July 1986, after the union threat was over, to another company it had invested in on the basis of airline deregulation. That buyer was Presidential Airways. The price was $18m.

Key Airlines preceded Janet. Presidential Airways was "held" by Blackwater back in the day.

I'm not shouting conspiracy here, but we do have a nice selection of the usual suspects.

reply to post by gariac


Not really the best link since you have to sign up to read anything more than a headline... and I'm not going to do that.

reply to post by flice


Obviously I wouldn't put a link up to a paid subscription website. However, Google redirected me there for free, so I assume you could search on some words from the article and get to read the whole thing for free yourself. That said, I cited the parts relative to Tonopah, Meg Whitman, and Erik Prince. Romney, Whitman, and Prince sound like a cabal to me, given where they are today.

If you want the rest of the story, in one sentence: Bain (Romney) made money, everyone else got screwed. ;-)

reply to post by gariac


The Presidential Airways formerly owned by Blackwater was a charter operation based in Melbourne, Florida. It didn't exist in 1986. You are thinking of the other Presidential Airways which was in business from 1985 to 1989.

reply to post by flice


OK, here is the deal with the Financial Times website. Copy the link I provided. Go to google and click on news. Paste the link in the box and hit enter.

Google is already "registered" to read the ft. com website, probably without any limitation. Though maybe after they read this they might block this trick.

I was doing a google search and stumbled upon the article. Since google found it, it didn't need an account.

reply to post by allenidaho


Yes, scratch Erik Prince off the cabal.