Wake Up to Money - 27/04/2010

The EU Transport Commissioner, Siim Kallas, is expected to give an indication later of how much money the ash cloud has cost airlines, and if European taxpayers will help them. The cost is believed to be in the region of a billion pounds, when lost revenues and the cost of feeding and housing stranded passengers is taken into account. We ask Andy Clarke, Advisor on Transport Policy at the European Regions Airline Association, why he is lobbying for state compensation. BP's first quarter results have revealed soaring profits because of high oil prices. But not all is well, as last week saw an annual general meeting full of angry shareholders over its controversial tar sands project in Canada. Then BP suffered another blow following an explosion at its Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Nick McGregor, analyst from the stock broker Redmayne Bentley explains what effect the oil leakage will have on BP's reputation. British Gas says it is listening to its customers and today is allowing some of them to visit one of its call centres. It is part of a Consumer Panel set up by Britain's biggest energy supplier, to improve customer service. We talk to Chris Jansen, Group Commercial Director at British Gas and Ann Robinson, Director of Consumer Policy from the price comparison website Uswitch, who is also on the panel and will be visiting one of the call centres. A US senate committee will grill the boss of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein over fraud allegations later. Just over a week ago, the bank was charged by the US Securities and Exchange Commission of misleading investors over a complicated investments linked to sub-prime mortgages. John Arlidge from the Sunday Times was the last journalist who interviewed Lloyd Blankfein, we asked him what he learned.