Business news for Mon, 31 Dec 2007 & with words added+group. 3 news.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Delta Air Lines and ExpressJet Holdings saw their shares rise 2.1% and 3.6%, respectively, to pace a broad advance in the airline sector on the last trading day of the year. The Amex Airline Index added almost 1% to 34.69 points on Monday even as crude advanced toward $97 a barrel. Frontier Airlines , Mesa Air Group and JetBlue Airways were the only decliners among the 14 components in the benchmark index.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Standard Life said Monday that it's increased its stake in Indian joint venture Standard Life Insurance Co. to 26% through acquiring roughly 7.15% of the joint venture from its partner Housing Development Finance Corp. Standard Life said it paid around 25.7 million pounds ($51.3 million) in cash for the stake. The group added it now owns the maximum stake allowed under Indian law.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- The Financial Services Authority is probing a jump in the share price of U.K. waste services group Biffa ahead of an announcement in November that it had received a 1.2 billion pound ($2.4 billion) takeover bid, according to a report in the Times (of London) newspaper. The report said the FSA has written to various parties involved in the talks to ask what they knew about any possible bid before buyout groups HgCapital and Montagu Private Equity revealed their offer. The inquiry is a part of a continuing focus at the regulator on insider trading ahead of major announcements, the newspaper added.