Richard McCosh vows to discard problem passport

Double trouble: Richard McCosh (left) with his boss Warren Ruscoe with the old and new passports.

After ruining his reputation as "Camp Mother", Richard McCosh's expired passport is for the chop.

Mr McCosh and three of his staff were due to fly to Cairns in Australia on September 21 for a work conference. However, Mr McCosh arrived at check-in in Auckland only to discover he had packed an expired passport instead of his new one.

After a series of early morning phone calls, his boss Warren Ruscoe drove the new passport to Whanganui Airport where Air Chathams held up its scheduled flight and then flew the passport to Auckland.

"The night before we were flying out, the rest of our team designated me as 'Camp Mother'," Mr McCosh said.

"But when we got to check-in, Camp Mother wasn't doing too well. The other three left as per the plan and I had to make my own plans to get things sorted out. I called Air Chathams who said they would give it a crack to get the passport to Auckland and then I rang Warren and asked him to take the passport to Whanganui Airport. As soon as I knew the passport was on the Air Chathams plane, I rescheduled to the next possible flight (to Cairns)."

The replacement flight was then cancelled because of the aviation fuel shortage but a larger plane was put on the route and eventually Mr McCosh was on his way. He finally reached his hotel in Cairns about 11pm, having started out in Auckland at 4.45am.

"I was prepared to pay for an express courier to get the passport to me so I asked Air Chathams how much it cost but they said not to worry about it," Mr McCosh said.

"Then when the plane arrived in Auckland, Roy, the ground crew staff member I'd been talking to on the phone in the morning, came running through the domestic terminal with my passport. So I got a chance to thank him personally.

"I posted on Facebook because I wanted to say thank you to Air Chathams and the response from people blew me away. The post has had more than 480 likes and more than 100 shares.

"I'm very grateful to Warren and Air Chathams for going the extra mile."