By ANDY PASZTOR

Here’s some good news for anyone boarding a plane this holiday season: Flying on U.S. airlines has become so safe that experts increasingly believe the biggest remaining risk of an accident is when the wheels are on the ground.

Airline industry and government officials said this month that to improve safety on scheduled flights by U.S. passenger and cargo carriers, they are focusing more on countering hazards present before takeoff and after touchdown.

These “surface threats,” to use the industry lingo, include ramp collisions, pilots who blunder onto the wrong runway—potentially into the path of a speeding jet—and planes running off wet or snowy airstrips. Airline pilots have long said that maneuvering big planes around complex and bustling airports, often at night or with poor visibility, is one of the most challenging parts of their jobs.

Flying on U.S. airlines has become so safe that experts increasingly believe the biggest accident risks are when a plane’s wheels are on the ground. Andy Pasztor has details on The News Hub. Photo: Getty Images

After a string of harrowing near-collisions on runways at various airports, the Federal Aviation Administration in 2007 called for action to prevent recurrences. Since then, the annual numbers for the most serious category of such tarmac incidents have dropped significantly. Now, these and other risks on the ground again are receiving emphasis among U.S. experts.

That’s largely because over the past few years, safety programs have achieved remarkable success in reducing airborne risks. Joint industry-government efforts have made once-deadly problems such as navigation errors, fuel-tank fires, weather-related crashes and engine malfunctions a rarity.

There were no fatalities on U.S. commercial flights in 2011. The year before, the only deaths were two pilots who perished in a U.S. cargo plane that caught fire and crashed in Dubai.

“America’s skies are the safest they have ever been,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in a press briefing on Wednesday.

As a result, reducing dangers on the ground is essential to continuing safety improvements. “We’ve learned how to operate planes very, very well in the air,” said Richard Healing, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board. Now, “runway events are much more likely to pose a major hazard than in-flight problems,” he said.

The picture for “general aviation,” which includes private and some corporate flights, is much darker. More than 450 people died in U.S. general-aviation accidents last year, amounting to one fatal accident for every 100,000 flight hours.

From the late 1990s to the end of the last decade, the fatal-crash rate of U.S. scheduled carriers fell by more than 80%, with no fatalities at all in some years. Improvements in the U.S. have exceeded the ambitious goals established during President Bill Clinton’s administration. Advances in cockpit technology have all but eliminated traditional threats such as jets flying into mountains in bad weather or slamming into the ground because of sudden wind changes on approach.

Such safety enhancements are estimated to save the industry more than $600 million annually in aircraft losses, lawsuits, higher insurance rates and other fallout from high-profile crashes.

In a briefing this month, Ken Hylander, the top safety official at Delta Air Lines, and Peggy Gilligan, the FAA’s top safety official, told reporters the goal by 2025 is to cut today’s remarkably low accident risk in half, down to one fatality per some 22 million flights. By some measures, that is dozens of times as safe as the world-wide rate.

That would amount to less than a single death over roughly two and a half years, a period in which more than 1.4 billion passengers would have boarded scheduled flights by U.S. airlines.

“Like all good goals, these are rather aggressive,” said Mr. Hylander, who recently was named co-chair of the main airline industry-government safety team. “The question really becomes, how do we get to the next step?”

With no fatal crashes of scheduled U.S. airliners in four of the past five years, and other, longer-term measures also showing steady declines, safety experts now focus on new approaches to anticipate and counter incipient hazards.

Industry-government efforts are whittling away at subtle threats, often to ground operations, that previously garnered less attention. So-called runway incursions, or two planes mistakenly ending up on the same strip, “most likely account for the largest single safety problem in front of us,” said Mark Rosenker, another former safety board member.

Government and airline officials also are reworking the way they calculate risk. Instead of the prior emphasis on rates of fatal accidents, experts have started to talk publicly about statistics that highlight a much tougher standard: individual fatalities per millions of flights.

Today’s safety efforts depend on expanding databases documenting the full gamut of close calls before they turn into accidents. As part of that effort, at least 37 U.S. airlines, seven more than 18 months ago, are now encouraging pilots to voluntarily file reports about all types of safety lapses, with assurances there will be no punishment. Safety experts have access to more than 100,000 such reports, along with some 30,000 voluntary incident reports filed by air-traffic controllers nationwide.

Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com

By MATTHEW DALTON

Reuters

Unions members talk with a driver as they block a main road during a public sector strike in Brussels on Thursday.

BRUSSELS—Government workers across Belgium went on strike Thursday to protest pension cuts planned by new socialist Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo aimed at bringing the country’s budget deficit in line with European Union rules and keeping the government out of the vortex of the euro-zone debt crisis.

Unions scheduled the strike for the day the Belgian Parliament debated the measures, which would raise the pension eligibility age from 60 to 62 years old and make it harder for workers in some professions to qualify for early retirement benefits, among other steps to cut long-term pension costs.

In Brussels, the bus, tram and metro systems were shut, prompting people to walk or bike to work. Some started their Christmas vacations early. Judges and magistrates protested at local court houses.

The strikes are the latest outburst of public anger against austerity reforms governments are pushing because of the economic and debt crisis. Unions in the U.K., France and other countries have held similar walkouts over public-sector pension cuts elsewhere this year. Other anti-austerity protests have turned violent in Greece.

The high-speed Eurostar and Thalys trains idled part of their service through Brussels as transport workers walked off the job. In France, a strike by airport-security personnel stretched into its seventh day, while in London, football club Arsenal postponed its Boxing Day game against Wolverhampton Wanderers by 24 hours because of a planned public-transport strike.

At the Brussels South train station, the tracks of the Eurostar and Thalys trains linking London and Paris through Brussels with Amsterdam and Germany remained empty.

“Eurostar and other onward connecting rail services will not be able to operate to or from Brussels during this period,” the rail company said of the 24-hour strike.

Simply waiting a day would be tough for holiday travelers since the trains are often fully booked for days on end. All local lines were canceled on Thursday, too, keeping many workers home. “Again, it is at the expense of travelers. We are literally left out in the cold,” said Kees Smilde of the TrainTramBus consumer group.

Mr. Di Rupo, appearing in parliament Thursday to defend the austerity proposals, lightly scolded the unions. “The unions have decided to protest, and it’s not for the government to judge that,” he said, “but strikes do not always facilitate dialogue.”

Belgium’s public-sector union said in a statement that the pension minister refused to include “reasonable transition measures” in the measures. “With that, he proved his contempt for the representatives of the public sector and the Belgian system of social consultation,” the statement said.

The National Bank of Belgium expects the government’s budget deficit to be 4.2% of gross domestic product this year. EU rules call for deficits under 3% of GDP. Mr. Di Rupo’s government has pledged to bring the deficit under the 3% limit next year and to balance the budget in 2015.

Standard & Poor’s downgraded Belgium last month, citing its high public debt level, slowing growth, lingering political crisis and the potential cost of supporting Dexia SA and other troubled financial institutions. Belgian 10-year bond yields rose to nearly 6%, the highest level since the start of the euro zone.

Since then, Belgium’s French-speaking socialist party teamed up with five other parties to form a coalition government making Mr. Di Rupo prime minister. That appeared to calm market tensions: Belgian yields have plummeted to around 4.27%.

Belgian pensions actually tend to be less generous than pensions in other European nations, according to data from Eurostat, the EU statistics agency. Pension expenditure in 2009 was 12.1% of GDP, under the euro-zone average of 13.4% of GDP.

The typical Belgian worker’s pension income is 46% of income just before retirement—the so-called “replacement ratio,” an important measure of pension system finances. The replacement ratio for the euro zone as a whole is 54%.

—The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Write to Matthew Dalton at Matthew.Dalton@dowjones.com

Por Dana Cimilluca, DAVID ENRICH e SARA SCHAEFER MUÑOZ, de Londres

O setor de bancos de investimento, notoriamente propenso a ciclos de contratação e demissão durante as altas e baixas da economia, está no meio de um recuo que pode ser mais profundo.

O anúncio ontem de que o Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC vai eliminar milhares de empregos e sair de algumas linhas de negócio em seu banco de investimento traz à tona a mudança radical em andamento em alguns bancos da Europa que, até recentemente, aspiravam a competir no mesmo nível de tradicionais pesos pesados como o Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Outros bancos, como o UBS AG, da Suíça, e o italiano UniCredit SpA, também anunciaram nas últimas semanas cortes que vão além dos recuos típicos das más fases do mercado. Mesmo fortes atores do setor, como o Credit Suisse, estão fazendo tomando medidas drásticas que mostram a pressão sobre o setor para se adaptar às novas realidades.

Além do corte de 3.500 empregos, o RBS anunciou também o fechamento de divisões vitais para o negócio de banco de investimento, como o de subscrição de ações e assessoria de fusões e aquisições. Ao contrário de outros bancos que estão podando porções de seus bancos de investimento, o RBS o fez sob pressões políticas diretas, com George Obsorne que ocupa um cargo que corresponde ao de ministro da Fazenda do Reino Unido , dizendo publicamente no mês passado que o banco deveria encolher aquela unidade para reduzir riscos.

O banco britânico, que antes da crise financeira tinha grandes ambições sob a liderança do ex-diretor-presidente Fred Goodwin, agora planeja se concentrar em negócios mais próximos de sua atividade central de financiamentos, como a subscrição de títulos de dívida e operações de câmbio. Tendo ainda 83% do capital nas mãos do governo britânico desde que foi resgatado três anos atrás, o RBS afirmou que está fechando operações devido às difíceis condições de mercado e a um aumento na regulamentação, o que dificultou a obtenção de lucros nos negócios que decidiu abandonar.

Executivos do RBS dizem que fazer negócios em áreas como fusões e aquisições sem ser um líder do setor se tornou impossível. A divisão de banco de investimento do RBS tem ainda que lidar com novas regras britânicas que forçariam os bancos a separar seus negócios de atacado dos de varejo, o qual bancos costumam usar para financiar suas atividades mais arriscadas.

A indústria de banco de investimento tende a inchar-se quando o mercado está favorável — como foi o caso antes de 2008 — e encolher depois de uma crise financeira, ou em períodos de lucros escassos como o atual. É provável que pelo menos parte da retração hoje seja temporária e dure até os problemas financeiros e econômicos da Europa se dissiparem e atividades como fusões e aquisições e subscrição de ações voltarem a se aquecer.

Mas especialistas dizem que partes do atual recuo não devem ser revertidas, pelo menos não tão cedo. Embora os cortes mais drásticos estejam acontecendo na Europa, a região tem um papel global importante na indústria, de modo que as reformas que estão em andamento provavelmente vão afetar os rankings do setor.

“Há sinais de uma mudança permanente aqui”, disse Douglas Elliott, um experiente banqueiro de investimento que hoje é membro do centro de estudos Brookings Institution. “É um pouco como o que aconteceu depois da Grande Depressão. Vai ser mais difícil ganhar muito dinheiro e isso dá motivo para as firmas recuarem.”

Não é só o ambiente de negócios enfraquecido que está levando os bancos a conter suas ambições na área de investimento. Executivos do setor estão percebendo que, devido às pesadas perdas potenciais a que estão expostos em fases ruins dos mercados, o negócio simplesmente não é tão atraente como outrora. Além disso, um pequeno número de bancos endinheirados saiu da crise em posições relativamente fortes, tornando mais difícil para concorrentes menores competir.

A maior mudança, contudo, é que novas regulamentações estão tornando os bancos de investimento menos lucrativos. O chamado acordo de Basileia, assinado no ano passado pela maioria dos países que têm bancos internacionais, requer que os bancos façam provisões maiores para cobrir possíveis perdas em certas atividades de banco de investimento. Países como a Suíça e o Reino Unido, cujos setores financeiros precisaram de enormes resgates com dinheiro público, foram ainda mais além nas restrições a seus bancos.

A combinação de regulamentações mais rígidas e a consolidação de poder no setor de banco de investimento por um punhado de instituições gigantescas “vai requerer uma mudança permanente na indústria”, uma reforma que já está em andamento entre bancos de investimento europeus de segunda classe, disse Robert Law, um analista de bancos da Nomura Securities em Londres. “Acho que é uma reavaliação definitiva das áreas em que eles querem estar e da lucratividade que podem ter em certas linhas de negócios.”

(Colaborou Fiona Law)

It’s a common complaint: Fly on a crowded plane and come home with a cold. What’s in the air up there?

Airlines are deploying state-of-the-art filtration systems to contain flu and cold viruses from spreading. Scott McCartney joins Lunch Break to discuss how to avoid getting sick while flying. Photo: AP.

Air travelers suffer higher rates of disease infection, research has shown. One study pegged the increased risk for catching a cold as high as 20%. And the holidays are a particularly infectious time of year, with planes packed full of families with all their presents—and all those germs.

Air that is recirculated throughout the cabin is most often blamed. But studies have shown that high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters on most jets today can capture 99.97% of bacterial and virus-carrying particles. That said, when air circulation is shut down, which sometimes happens during long waits on the ground or for short periods when passengers are boarding or exiting, infections can spread like wildfire.

One well-known study in 1979 found that when a plane sat three hours with its engines off and no air circulating, 72% of the 54 people on board got sick within two days. The flu strain they had was traced to one passenger. For that reason, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an advisory in 2003 to airlines saying that passengers should be removed from planes within 30 minutes if there’s no air circulation, but compliance isn’t mandatory.

Much of the danger comes from the mouths, noses and hands of passengers sitting nearby. The hot zone for exposure is generally two seats beside, in front of and behind you, according to a study in July in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A number of factors increase the odds of bringing home a souvenir cough and runny nose. For one, the environment at 30,000 feet enables easier spread of disease. Air in airplanes is extremely dry, and viruses tend to thrive in low-humidity conditions. When mucous membranes dry out, they are far less effective at blocking infection. High altitudes can tire the body, and fatigue plays a role in making people more susceptible to catching colds, too.

Also, viruses and bacteria can live for hours on some surfaces—some viral particles have been found to be active up to a day in certain places. Tray tables can be contaminated, and seat-back pockets, which get stuffed with used tissues, soiled napkins and trash, can be particularly skuzzy. It’s also difficult to know what germs are lurking in an airline’s pillows and blankets.

Research has shown how easily disease can spread. Tracing influenza transmission on long-haul flights in 2009 with passengers infected with the H1N1 flu strain, Australian researchers found that 2% passengers had the disease during the flight and 5% came down within a week after landing. Coach-cabin passengers were at a 3.6% increased risk of contracting H1N1 if they sat within two rows of someone who had symptoms in-flight. That increased risk for post-flight disease doubled to 7.7% for passengers seated in a two-seat hot zone.

The epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2002-03 suggested a wider exposure zone, however. On one flight studied, one passenger spread a particular strain to someone seated seven rows away, while people seated next to the ill passenger didn’t contract the disease.

That said, most people sitting near someone who is ill probably won’t get sick. “When you get aboard an aircraft, most of us don’t have a say on who we sit next to. But that doesn’t doom you to catching the flu,” said Mark Gendreau of Boston’s Lahey Clinic Medical Center.

In 2005, he was part of a team that published a paper in the Lancet that concluded the perceived risk for travelers was higher than the actual risk, and that’s still the case today, he said.

Even so, there are some basic precautions passengers can take to keep coughs away.

Hydrate. Drinking water and keeping nasal passages moist with a saline spray can reduce your risk of infection.

Clean your hands frequently with an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. We often infect ourselves, touching mouth, nose or eyes with our own hands that have picked up something.

Use a disinfecting wipe to clean off tray tables before using.

Avoid seat-back pockets.

Open your air vent, and aim it so it passes just in front of your face. Filtered airplane air can help direct airborne contagions away from you.

Change seats if you end up near a cougher, sneezer or someone who looks feverish. That may not be possible on very full flights, but worth a try. One sneeze can produce up to 30,000 droplets that can be propelled as far as six feet.

Raise concerns with the crew if air circulation is shut off for an extended period.

Avoid airline pillows and blankets (if you find them).

“If you take the proper precautions, you should do quite well,” said Dr. Gendreau. “In most of us, our immune system does what it was designed to do—protect us from infectious insults.”

Hidden Dangers in Security

You think the plane is bad? Security checkpoints harbor a host of hazards as well, researchers say.

Jason Schneider

Airport security areas can make it easy to get sick. People are crowded together, and plastic storage bins that hold personal effects are not cleaned after each screening.

People get bunched up in lines, where there is plenty of coughing and sneezing. Shoes are removed and placed with other belongings into plastic security bins, which typically don’t get cleaned after they go through the scanner.

A National Academy of Sciences panel is six months into a two-year study that is taking samples at airport areas to try to pinpoint opportunities for infection.

With limited resources, airports and airlines have asked researchers to help figure out where best to target prevention, said Dr. Mark Gendreau of Boston’s Lahey Clinic Medical Center who is on the panel.

Check-in kiosks and baggage areas are other prime suspects in addition to security lines, he said.

Corrections & Amplifications

In a 2009 study, coach-cabin passengers were at a 7.7% increased risk of contracting the H1N1 flu strain if they sat within two seats of someone who was infected. A graphic that orginally appeared with this column incorrectly said such passengers were at a 7.5% increased risk.

Write to Scott McCartney at Scott.McCartney@wsj.com

Por DAVID BENOIT, de Nova York

O J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. divulgou uma queda de 23% no lucro do quarto trimestre, resultado de mais um período fraco para as operações de investimentos, mas executivos do banco americano disseram que um crescimento no volume de empréstimos em todas as divisões do banco indica que a economia está melhorando.

O J.P. Morgan foi o primeiro grande banco dos Estados Unidos a divulgar os resultados do quarto trimestre e ofereceu uma primeira confirmação das expectativas de um fim de ano desanimador para as maiores instituições financeiras do país. A receita do banco ficou abaixo das expectativas.

Embora o braço de investimentos tenha se desacelerado, como era esperado dada a volatilidade do mercado global, as operações de crédito do banco continuaram a ter alta demanda, um sinal mais positivo para as empresas dos EUA e da economia como um todo.

O diretor-presidente do J. P. Morgan, James Dimon, disse a jornalistas que “esqueçam sobre a fraqueza das bolsas” e garantiu que sua visão sobre a divisão de banco investimento não foi alterada pela queda de 30% na receita.

Em vez disso, Dimon se concentrou no crescimento das operações de empréstimos, que ele chamou de negócios reais. A carteira de crédito total do banco cresceu 4%, com empréstimos para empresas de médio porte subindo 4% e para grandes empresas, 9%.

“Todas”, respondeu Dimon quando perguntado sobre quais empresas e indústrias estão contraindo empréstimos. Os setores “industrial, de consumo, de financiamento, empresas da Ásia, América Latina, de grande, médio e pequeno portes, de todos os tipos.”

Dimon também destacou os US$ 68 bilhões em empréstimos para governos, estados, municípios, hospitais e universidades dos EUA, crédito que, segundo ele, o banco continua a outorgar apesar das ações judiciais e uma visão negativa da opinião pública sobre os bancos.

Em última análise, a demanda por empréstimos vai gerar mais empregos, disse ele.

“Temos uma leve recuperação, que pode realmente estar se fortalecendo”, disse Dimon. “É algo amplo que está acontecendo e espero que resulte em mais empregos.”

O lucro líquido total do banco no quarto trimestre foi de US$ 3,73 bilhões. A receita caiu 17%, para US$ 22,2 bilhões, abaixo das expectativas dos analistas, de US$ 23 bilhões.

A queda na receita em grande parte reflete o desempenho do lado do banco de investimento, incluindo grandes declínios nas taxas de subscrição de ações e títulos, bem como transações com recursos próprios no mercado de ações.