Southwest Airlines is dropping nearly 20 nonstop routes in January to free up planes for flights with stronger demand, including its new Hawaii routes.

Airlines routinely eliminate flights with weaker-than-expected performance but don't trumpet the cutbacks like they do new flights. Southwest's flight cuts were part of its latest schedule extension, announced Thursday.

Effective Jan. 6, Southwest will eliminate nonstop flights between the following cities:

Los Angeles-Cancun, Mexico

Los Angeles-Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Los Angeles-Omaha, Nebraska

Los Angeles-Pittsburgh

Boston-Atlanta

Boston-Kansas City, Missouri

Boston-Milwaukee

Dallas Love Field-Oklahoma City

Dallas Love Field-Jacksonville, Florida

Dallas Love Field-San Francisco

Orlando, Florida-Oakland, California

Orlando-San Jose, California

Orlando-Sacramento, California

Fort Lauderdale, Florida-Jacksonville, Florida

New York LaGuardia-Orlando, Florida

Columbus, Ohio-Oakland, California

Austin, Texas-San Francisco

"We are always evaluating our service patterns and performance to ensure that we are offering the right number of seats for the community based on demand from travelers,'' Southwest spokesman Dan Landson said in a statement.

Southwest offers daily flights in each direction on all of the routes except New York-Orlando, which is Saturday-only service.

Landson said one-stop service between the cities will still be available.

Southwest previously announced that it was exiting Newark, New Jersey, effective Nov. 3.

Southwest adding new $99 Hawaii flights in January: Sacramento-Honolulu, Oakland-Kona

Island hopping: Southwest to begin running $29 flights between Hawaiian islands in January