Introduction
Infrastructure assets, although very beneficial to society are often marred with high profiled accidents and deaths. Industry segments such as trucking, rail transportation, and ocean shipping have all experienced very high profile and deadly accidents. Although the statistics indicate the many of these activities are safe, occasionally accidents occur that can adverse consequents for not only the company, but the industry overall. The airline industry is not except for this criticism either. The airline industry is particularly fraught with oversight primarily due its importance global economy. The airline not only transports goods around the world but also individuals. These individuals are often helpless in the event of a malfunction or a serios lapse in protocols. As the September 11th, terrorist attacks illustrated, airlines can also be the target of extremist’s groups looking to harm the United States. From a national security perspective, airline also ship mission critical information, goods and products around the world. The recent COVID-19 pandemic illustrates the importance of airline companies in transporting life saving vaccines and doing so in a temperature controls and secure fashion. As result of the overall importance of the airline industry to consumers, industries and society overall, it is often a prime candidate for risk assessment. The modified bow-tie model is particularly useful as it allows multiple sources of inputs and consequences for a single event. It also provides insights into preventative measures and how to properly mitigate the risks associated with the aviation industry. Although risk can not be fully eliminated, through the use of the modified bow-tie methods risks can be substantial diminished (Cederholm, 2008). 

The overall purpose of the risk assessment is the minimize risks associated with the airline industry. Due to its importance to society, individuals travel, and global commerce, periodic risk assessments must be conducted to maintain the overall safety of the industry. Likewise, risk assessments can ultimately increase consumers confidence in utilizing the industry for their commerce and transportations needs. As COVID-19 has illustrated, a severe lack of consumer confidence, especially related to health safety can have a serve impact on the industry overall. Likewise, a severe mistake resulting in the death of many paying customers can have a similar impact. For this reason the report will provide a risk assessment of the sources of late clearance changes from air traffic control operations. In this instance, a majority of the safety reports have shown a strong correlation to air traffic control and late clearance items (Cederholm, 2014). 

Methodology

Chart 1, within the appendix provides a list of 25 safety reports that were analyzed. The chart includes both...…Extreme rise in oil prices 

14. 4C – Employee Strike 

15. 5C – Weather Delays 

16. 1D – Employee delays and absenteeism 

17. 2D – Technology interruptions and/or slowness

18. 3D – Airplane maintenance 

19. 4D – Airport Closure 

20. 5D – Rise of alternative transportation 

21. 1E – Disgruntled customer holding delay the flight 

22. 2E – Power outage 

23. 3E – Customer Protests 

24. 4E – Large amounts of lost packages 

25. 5E – Employee Theft 

Conclusion 

To conclude improvements will need to be made to the technology related to the flight crew and ATC. The first recommendation will be enhance work flow techniques in order to avoid costly clearance delays. These workflow solutions will allow ATC to properly access incoming air traffic, mitigate errors and allow for proper clearance. The solution should focus on cyber security, to protect both airlines and their customers. The second solution pertains to the pilot communication principles. Here, clearance, if certain protocols are met, should be requested in advance to provide ATC with appropriate time to approve.