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Old Jan 27, 2005 | 10:28 am
  #1  
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Question Immigration question @ LHR

I'm going from NYC to London with my wife. Now, I hold an EU passport, so I can go in the EU line @ LHR. However, my wife has a Canadian passport. Can she go with me in the EU line or do we have to stand in the non-EU line? The couple of times that I've been to LHR by myself, the non-EU line looked horribly long.

We were able to use the EU line in Geneva airport with no problem.
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Old Jan 27, 2005 | 12:04 pm
  #2  
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No, she will have to go in the non-EU queue.

Of course, there's no reason why you can't go with her to keep her company. The only thing you might find is that the queue managers try to separate you if they see that you hold an EU passport and they are being officious. However, they are only airport staff, not immigration people, so their attempts really have no official backing. The immigration officers have never objected to me (UK) coming through the non-EU queue with my non-EU partner.

The only concession that I'm aware of is that if you are a British citizen and you are travelling with a non-EU citizen to whom you're married, who has indefinite leave to remain (ie permanent residence) in the UK on the basis of marriage, then the non-EU citizen can accompany the British citizen through the EU queue. But even that concession varies from terminal to terminal, let alone airport to airport. And every time it's described to me, it's in different terms. (And it never works for us because my partner's ILR isn't on the basis of marriage.)

If you are travelling in a premium class on your inbound flight, you should be offered a pass to go through the Fast Track immigration channel if your flight arrives when that's open. That is often faster for non-EU passengers.

Of course, if there's nobody queuing at the EU desk, you can try your luck ...

On that note, the EU/non-EU signs at many European airports seem to be there just for show, or to gather dust, with none of the officials giving a stuff about them. But then, few of those airports have immigration queue pressures of quite the same order as LHR.
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Old Feb 2, 2005 | 9:02 am
  #3  
 
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I am not so sure the EU line saves much time anyways. I travel to LHR around 4 times a year and I have always walked directly upto an agent and right through, while my buddy in the EU line waits longer because there are less desks working that line.

I have quite the little collection of pink cards from AC for the premium passenger line because of this same reason. I am sure there are busier times for the non EU lines but my flights arrive around 10 am and the only time I have had to wait is in the premium passenger line.
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