UK Customs

Marssha, I agree with Andre. The best idea would be for both of you to go through the "non E.U." section. Of course, your partner could go through the "E.U." section if desired. Will your partner be travelling with both his British and Canadian Passports? Cheers!

Your travel companion can join you on the non-EU citizens line, but not the opposite. Sometimes I've seen people do that (I have an European citizenship as well), but it is heavily frown upon, once an officer sent a trio back to the non-EU line because they were clinging on a 4th person EU citizen. I was just behind them so I kinds overheard the argument (they were trying to shortcut on the EU line because of a short connection).

I think the only exception would be if you were married or a family and the immigration information would be presented at the same time, then both could use the EU line. Aside from that, they do have any number of people helping direct lines, if the lines are terribly long, it would not hurt to ask.

You might as well both go through the non-EU line. Even if the EU line is quicker, your friend would still have to wait for you.

People traveling together are supposed to go through immigration simultaneously. Splitting-up can be considered "suspicious" behavior.

In my experience, Michael is correct....parties generally stay together. The definition of "party" for the sake of Heathrow seems to be family members/ spouse/ boyfriend-girlfriend, etc. I am a UK Citizen and my girlfriend is a US citizen. Whenever we travel to Heahthrow the wandering immigration officers always direct us through the EU line together, telling us "parties stay together." We've never had an issue going through the EU line as a couple. The story told above about the 4 people hanging on to one EU passport holder I'm sure is distinguishable- having a bunch of unrelated persons trying to hang on to a single EU passport holder is really pushing it, and they were quite rightly sent to the EU line. Note that the Heathrow rule isn't uniform across UK airports- while going through Stansted we assumed it would be ok for both of us to go through the EU line, wrong! We were sent to the non-EU line and then got the most insufferable IO giving us a thorough and unnecessary interrogation. All seems to be on the whims of the individual IO's.

What knid of time should we expect going through the Non EU line? An hour give or take?

Tom, it depends on day of the week, time of day, and how many other planes have arrived at the same time (and how many people are EU citizens or not). I have had it be as long as an hour and a quarter, and as short as twenty minutes.