I don't even think that's true. Seatbelts are an improvement in safety regardless of context. But what you're arguing here is that a system that's designed to rely on GPS availability, and gets it, is safer than the same system during a GPS outage, not that GPS availability will make any airport management system safer.
It makes it safer to run aircraft closer together. Most airport capacity increases these days come from optimizing airspace, not from new runways or airports, which are time consuming, expensive, and controversial. We used to operate without them but we were also generally operating a lot fewer flights back then.
The more apt analogy is what would our roads look like if all traffic signals stopped working? People would still drive, but it would have to be at lower speeds, with more congestion, etc.
> The more apt analogy is what would our roads look like if all traffic signals stopped working? People would still drive, but it would have to be at lower speeds, with more congestion, etc.
This happens pretty frequently with single signals, so we know what that looks like.
An unattended broken signal gets treated like a stop sign (by law), and this immediately blocks traffic. It's a total disaster.
If it happens anywhere near a population center, a human will be dispatched to cover for the broken signal and dysfunctional law by manually directing traffic, and this gets you almost all the way back to normal.
If every signal failed at once, that would cause much bigger problems, but in the event that we know we're unable to repair the signals, which is the case here, we wouldn't just try to muddle through using the existing roads and systems. We'd define new systems that worked better in the absence of traffic lights.
I was mostly addressing the idea expressed in other places in this thread that aviation without GPS is fine, not your specific point. To address your question, the commercial aviation world is still in the process of figuring out how to deal with the new, current reality of GPS jamming and spoofing. They're developing new procedures, designing new equipment, and changing priorities and plans. While this happens they're downplaying the risks in press releases and statements to avoid spooking the public.
"If this is a regular thing, shouldn't we have ways of using the airport without hoping that the jamming is having an off day?" Yes. But it takes time and money. This level of GPS interference is relatively new, and for about the past 30 years you could basically assume GPS would be available.
