SAA have had numerous CEO's and acting CEO's over the last decade and each one comes up with a new "turnaround strategy" which inevitably fails.
Their ratio of staff to aircraft operated (a simple measure of productivity) is way higher than international norms and best practice - at OR Tambo, sometimes there are more people hanging around or chatting in groups in blue SAA uniforms than there are passengers, and half of those passengers work for government or parastatals, anyway (travelling business class often).

One of the reasons that Standard Chartered bank refused to roll over or extend the loans is that they own some of the aircraft that SAA operate. As PG said, "join the dots".

Best solution is privatisation, but that will not happen under Gigaba(ge).
SAA is technically insolvent, so there is no equity anyway - no-one buys liabilities without more assets to cover them.

Second best solution is bankruptcy - take the 20 billion plus hit, but at least the blood then stops flowing.