let's not get paranoid about "letters"
I think Hetfield was simply asking a question, as indicated by the question mark. Avherald wrote "The crew advised they had only 5 minutes of holding fuel and requested estimates for the holding time, then advised they would need to divert to Bratislava [...] FR-8414 was vectored towards Bratislava [...] Climbing through FL110 flight FR-8414 requested priority, was told the airport [Budapest] would be open for them".