ncl1966 - Welcome to the forum. Good to have you on board.
New York - I personally think Newcastle would be well down any US airline's list of potential destinations on this side of the Atlantic. That said, I understand both the airport and regional players have been pulling out all the stops to maximise the volume of their interventions in favour of a link. My guess would be that any meeting with CO would be a part of post-fuel-crisis-price-peak planning, and they're doing groundwork for potential route expansion as far away as 2010. We shall see.