I am pleasantly surprised that there were 70 folks on the first inbound from Madrid. I've said on here before that, contrary to what the Newcastle Gateshead (those are still two separate words in my book) Initiative will tell you, inbound tourists to our neck of the woods are pitifully small in numbers. A listen to the voices in the departure lounge will tell you that the vast majority of folks using the airport are from within about 50 miles of Woolsington. It may be that that will improve with Ryanair and with general trends in tourism in general. I hope so - within reason anyway, we don't want the Northumbrian beaches getting too crowded!
For the last few years NUFC were in the Premier League, there was often a large block of seats around me that were taken up by visiting fans from the Netherlands. I spoke to a few of them and most of them seemed to come in on the ferry, though. Not sure if they are still coming now that we are in the Second Division, as I ditched my season ticket - for financial reasons rather than because they were crap, honest
