Turkish Air Passengers Up 19 Percent In Q1

Turkish Airlines, Europe's fourth-biggest airline by passenger numbers, carried 13.4 million people in the first six months of the year, up 19.3 percent on the year before, it said on Thursday.

Overseas business class and international transit passengers rose 35 percent and 26 percent respectively, it said in a statement.

Turkish Airlines has rapidly expanded its fleet since 2008 in a bid to grab market share from European peers. It has doubled the number of seats on long-haul planes in the past two years to focus on lucrative transit fares and international routes.

"We see that growth has not slowed despite the effects of the volcanic ash cloud in April," said Ozgur Goker, equity analyst at UniCredit Securities in Istanbul.

"It's positive that demand is outpacing capacity, as is the increase in transit... and business class, which earns more revenue per individual, which reflects on net income."

Turkey's flag carrier also said its load factor climbed 3.9 percentage points to 72 percent.

Available seat kilometers rose 20 percent to 30.4 billion and revenue passenger kilometers rose 27 percent to 22 billion, the statement also said.

Cargo rose 40 percent to 151.8 tonnes.