Singapore direct flights from Mangalore cancelled for February.

My brother had booked his flight for a round-trip in Feb, on his way from Australia. Just got a call from air india express stating that flights are cancelled for the sector throughout February. Please check your call logs or check directly (call) with air india express for status. Website still shows flights are live. He got his refund immediately due to UPI payment, that confirmed it was real. Quite the bummer, these flights were awesome as it cut down flight times by half, now it's 10 hours via any other airports.