Turkish Airlines Jan-April passengers up 15 pct

ISTANBUL, May 17 (Reuters) - Turkish Airlines THYAO.IS, one of the fastest growing airlines in Europe, carried 6.29 million passengers in January to April, up 14.8 percent year-on-year, it said late on Friday.

The Turkish flag carrier said in a statement to the stock market that available seat kilometres rose 9.9 percent to 13.56 million and revenue passenger kilometres rose 14.4 percent to 9.62 million.

THY has said it aims to increase passenger traffic to 23.5 million in 2008, up from 19.6 million passengers last year. (Reporting by Emma Ross-Thomas; Editing by Anshuman Daga)