"From the first hands" idiom
Hello everybody.
I'd like to know is there in English any kind of idiom synonomous to Russian "From the first hands" ("Из первых рук").
For example, if I'd like to know price of a plane ticket:
* I can ask my friends about it and they can answer based on their experience, so the answer may be incorrect (because price could to grow last week)
* I can phone to an airport, ask about the price, and get confident information about the price because the airport is the first source for that kind of information.
So, the airport is "the first hand" and my friends are "the second hand" in my case.