The author explicitly dismissed the idea of "greedy airlines" as not passing his "sniff test" whilst the data shows their own actions are a more frequent culprit for delays than aviation services (be they ATC shortages or congestion, which combined only account for <20% of the delays; unlikely to cause of a fourfold increase in long delays by themselves never mind be a reason for slower cruising speeds).

I doubt an economist a little less enthusiastic about the ability of markets to give people exactly what they want than Max would have missed the obvious dynamic that when airlines are competing mainly on price in a thin-margin capital-intensive industry they absolutely can capture market share (from paying customers, not just points collectors) by accepting the risk of degraded service.