Do I clear immigration and customs in heathrow T3 for stop over on seperate ticket

Question

I am travelling from Prague > London > Dubai > Sydney. The Prague to London is with BA and London to Dubai is with emirates.

They are booked on separate tickets so I don't think my bags will be checked all the way through. Does this mean I will need to collect my bags and pass through customs and immigration at Heathrow and check-in again for my next flight? Or will BA do it for me?

If I have to, how long does this take at Heathrow? My flight arrives at 12:30 PM and I am non-EU passport holder.

My connecting flight with emirates leaves at 2:15 PM so I only have 1hr 45min to do this assuming the first flight is on time.

Is this possible? Or should I try to make other plans?
Is there a way to fast track immigration or customs? I am a One World Sapphire member.

Answer 1

Oneworld has recently changed policy and airlines including BA are no longer required to interline bags on separate tickets. In your case, Emirates isn't in oneworld and it's likely that BA wouldn't have checked-through your luggage anyway.

You will have to exit customs and immigration, collect your bags, change terminals (if necessary) and check-in again. Given 1:45 connection time, this is very risky and I personally would not attempt it.

If you could travel with hand baggage only, you might have a chance of making the connection, but it would still have a risk, and leave you with the possibility of having to buy a new ticket if your incoming connection is late.

As a oneworld sapphire, this does not give you any special fasttrack immigration at LHR for short haul flights. There are kiosks for machine readable EU passport holders which it seeems you are not eligible.