New York's gateway to the world

JFK Terminal One is the only 100% international terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York. Managed by Terminal One Group Association (TOGA) — a partnership between Air France, Korean Air, and Lufthansa — it operates on shared common-use infrastructure serving over 30 global carriers. JFK is mid-way through a redevelopment programme. Construction-related outages are an operational reality.

Challenge

When the power goes out, paper doesn't cut it

In February 2023, an electrical panel failure shut Terminal One down for three days. With no independent backup, check-in and boarding stopped. Staff handwritten boarding passes and assigned seats manually. Flights were cancelled.

Every process depended on fixed airport infrastructure — power, network, counters. When any of it failed, operations failed with it.

Implementation

TOGA partnered with Ink Innovation to deploy Ink DRS — a mobile-based Disaster Recovery System operating entirely independently of airport power, Wi-Fi, and fixed counters.

70 mobile kits deployed across Terminal One, supporting all airline operations on a single common-use platform. Each kit runs on smartphones and tablets with compact Bluetooth printers for bag tags and boarding passes. Configured for multiple carriers simultaneously, each with its own seat maps and airline-specific rules. Covers the full passenger journey: check-in, baggage handling, boarding, and post-flight messaging.

Live trial first conducted in 2023 with Air France, Air New Zealand, and Korean Air. Ink DRS completed a full Cold Backup flow in a live environment — flight creation, seat mapping, passenger registration, bag data exchange, and APIS and PNL integration for security checks. Following the trial, TOGA expanded deployment across the entire terminal operation in 2024.

Airlines currently connected to Ink DRS at JFK T1: Air Serbia, NEOS, TAP Portugal, Air New Zealand, Air China, EVA Air, ITA Airways, China Eastern.

‍Results

• Full passenger processing maintained during power and system outages, independent of airport infrastructure
• Agents trained and operational within a single 45-minute session on the day of deployment
• Common-use mobile deployment covers all connected airline partners on a single platform
• Mobile-first setup enables queue relief and remote check-in beyond contingency use

Customer voice

"We had a three-day power outage in 2023, and it exposed a lot. We had no redundancy — boarding passes were handwritten, we were calling HQs to get manifests. It just wasn't sustainable. We needed a terminal-level tool, not something managed by a single airline. Ink gave us that. It's clean, it's mobile. Ink DRS is the only system we know that runs on tablets and mobile phones, independent of the airport infrastructure. If the power supply goes out again, we're not shutting down. We're still processing passengers. That's where we need to be." — Steve Rowland, Executive Director, Terminal One Group Association (TOGA)

What's next

New Terminal One is scheduled to partially open in June 2026, with further phases continuing through 2030. The check-in lobby is under pressure — more airlines, more passengers, the same footprint. TOGA is extending Ink DRS beyond contingency use and into daily operations ahead of that transition. The next step is full terminal coverage: every airline onboarded, every agent trained. 

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