We'll start since we've made it pretty clear that it's something that concerns us.
As we indicated in our opening statement, we are trying to be realists here. We know how the world is evolving. These joint ventures are out there, not only in Canada but in the United States and Europe, and they offer a lot of potential advantages for travellers in terms of enhanced connectivity, more destinations, etc. However, when we look at it in the Canadian context, we have to look at our specific circumstances here.
We are a small market in Canada. We have one airline in particular that is interested in these sorts of joint ventures and in these provisions that would effectively indemnify that joint venture, protect it from the scrutiny, if you will, or active enforcement of competition law by transferring that power to the minister. We know who that airline is. They're a member of a joint venture right now, which, according to our numbers, out of 30 transatlantic markets in 2016, controlled over 35% market share. That's those three major members: Air Canada, Lufthansa, and United. This is in and out of Canada.
In several of those markets, that figure exceeded 40%, and in two of them over 80%, and one 90%, Switzerland. These are extraordinary market shares, and as such, when you take that reality, and all of a sudden you propose to curtail the ability of the commissioner of competition to look at the ultimate consumer interests here, how this is being deployed, and whether or not it may not be in the long-term interests of the Canadian consumer, that's why we're ringing the bell here and we're saying hold on. Yes, the minister has a role to play. Yes, there are public interest considerations that must be looked at: job creation, connectivity, and trade and commerce. This is all good, and I think our colleagues from WestJet talked about connectivity yesterday.
However, it's not at any cost. What has happened here is that the pendulum, as we said in our opening remarks, has swung too much towards the ability of the minister, in terms of a politicized process, to make this decision without necessarily having a meaningful input on the part of the competition commissioner, and a transparent input at that.