NG Kaptain,
BS and IG do a very good job, if you're like them you should do fine over here. As for direct entry, well, yes we do it in almost all of the fleets, but it's done fairly rarely and getting a left seat in the 737-700 requires a lot of experience, our DE guys are retired Delta, Egyptair, Gulf Captains and have tons of time (several thousand PIC). IJ for example, would be a good candidate (I think he has 1000+ 737 PIC) but his experience level is too close (albeit superior) to guys that are senior to him and in the company but in a lower position. As you can imagine it's tough on everyone senior to the DEC but in a lower position.
Aramco purposely maintains a small pool of DEC contractors in most fleets to allow for contraction and expansion of requirements without having to axe/hire a company guy. Also, if you get hired on as a DEC contractor it's much harder to be selected as a full time employee(in a DEC position) because of the morale impact on other full time employees senior to you but lower than you. Having said that if the Aviation Department finds a really amazing guy with talent, personality, good attitude, and of course good political skills(whether genuine nice guy or whatever) they will occasionally offer full time DEC employment; Currently we are converting to full time employment one (1) DEC 737 Captain. He’s a retired Delta Captain and very, very good in the cockpit and in helping with office work (MEL revision, Ops manuals, that sort of fun stuff). It also helps that he’s as humble as pie.
We currently have DEC’s on the contracts side in the B737, H800, CE550, Twin Otter, Dash 8, and Air Tractor. Most expats that are hired full time usually jump straight into the 737 as an F/O (bypassing the Ab Initio Saudi’s in the Dash 8 and CE 550 F/O position) due to their experience and then rapidly move into Captain position in one of the smaller aircraft (like the CE 550 or more recently the H800), just like Nevrekar stated in his own experience. Over the past 4 years we’ve had about 4 guys get hired full time into the G-IV and 737 as skippers, which are Aramco Aviations top tier positions.
As one can imagine this has caused some frustration within the ranks, but due to steady turnover I think it’s rare that someone doesn’t reach the top within Aramco’s prescribed aircrew progression plan (give or take a couple of years). Basically someone who gets hired on by Aramco should be able to make Skipper on the 737 or G-IV within 9-12 years of fulltime service, irregardless of DECs and their starting position in the company.