Originally Posted by
teiring
Hi,
I will be travelling to Colombo during Christmas. Unfortunately, I had to do the booking on two different tickets. This means that I will arrive in Dubai in Terminal 1 with British Airways ( BA107, 11:30pm ) and have to connect to Terminal 3 for my Emirates flight ( EK650, 2:45am ) to Colombo. Consequently, British Airways won't allow me to check my luggage through, since the booking is on two different tickets.
Strange, BA and EK have interline agreements and hence BA should check through your luggage to CMB even on separate tickets.
I would be worried about missing EK650 altogether, the midnight air traffic period in DXB is known to be extra busy on top of BA107 that usually runs late.
While 3 hours is generally fine to connect, sometimes EK to EK with that much time barely gives an hour to spend in the lounges let alone clearing immigration, collecting baggage, clearing customs, checking in baggage, clearing immigration again. It's a fair bit of walk from landing in T1, then going to T3 at the arrival/departure end.
Having said all that, I recently learnt it is not necessary to have your bags tagged through. The transfer desk in DXB will be able to re-tag your bags through to your final destination without having to clear immigration/customs. This is the case for flydubai, so I can't imagine it's any different for EK:
http://www.flydubai.com/en/plan/connections/
When you arrive at the check-in desk *in LHR*, tell the agent you're transferring onto another flight in Dubai. You'll need to show confirmation of your onward booking and/or ticket and your travel documents. Once your documents have been checked, your baggage will be tagged for Dubai.
If you're travelling on another airline, your boarding pass for your connecting flight will be issued at the dnata transfer desk in arrivals at Dubai International Airport.
In Dubai
When you reach Dubai, go to the dnata transfer desk, where you'll be checked-in for your next flight and your bags will be re-tagged for your final destination. You’ll need to show your:
onward ticket or flydubai booking confirmation
valid travel documents for acceptance at your final destination
your baggage tag if you checked in baggage at the start of your journey