Aviation

Context is important here — San Diego has a single runway, and also has rather limited space for planes to taxi, so when the airport gets busy, getting all planes to and from the runways is a bit of a jigsaw puzzle for air traffic controllers. That’s especially tricky when planes land before their gate is ready, and they need somewhere to wait.

So this was one of those situations where the ground controller obviously had a lot of planes that wanted to move, but limited ability to actually move them. Airline pilots are also always looking to move as soon as possible, and sometimes they want to remind air traffic controllers of their desire to move, follow up on progress, etc.