The plane maker lost $355 million after a door panel blew off an Alaska Airlines flight.

Boeing 737 Max airplanes, including one belonging to TUI Group, left, sit parked at a storage lot, April 26, 2021, near Boeing Field in Seattle. Boeing reported earnings on Wednesday. TED S. WARREN — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

By NIRAJ CHOKSHI | THE NEW YORK TIMES

Boeing on Wednesday reported a $355 million loss for the first three months of the year, as it deals with a quality crisis stemming from a Jan. 5 flight during which a panel blew off one of its planes.

The loss was not as steep as analysts had expected, and it was smaller than the $425 million loss in the first quarter last year. Boeing brought in more than $16.5 billion in revenue in the first quarter, less than it reported last year, and the company burned through almost $4 billion in cash, in both cases surpassing analyst expectations.

The panel blowout on a 737 Max 9 jet during an Alaska Airlines flight en route to Ontario resulted in no major injuries, but the incident dealt a heavy blow to the company, reigniting concerns about Boeing’s practices five years after two fatal crashes involving 737 Max 8 planes. Since the Jan. 5 flight, the company has taken steps to improve quality, including expanding inspections, changing how work is performed, increasing training and soliciting more feedback from employees.

“We are absolutely committed to doing everything we can to make certain our regulators, customers, employees and the flying public are 100% confident in Boeing,” Dave Calhoun, Boeing’s CEO, said in a letter to employees Wednesday.

Last month, Calhoun said he would step down by the end of the year, part of a management shake-up. Boeing is also in talks to buy Spirit AeroSystems, a troubled supplier that builds the body of the Max jet and that had been a part of Boeing until it was spun off two decades ago.

The Federal Aviation Administration has increased scrutiny of Boeing, capping 737 production at 38 planes per month, though production remains well below that level. The regulator has demanded that Boeing produce a plan to improve quality by the end of May. On a call with financial analysts, Calhoun said Boeing had been in regular contact with the FAA as it developed that plan.

Boeing had been hoping to produce 50 737s and 10 larger 787s per month starting next year, but analysts say the company is unlikely to meet that goal. On the call, Calhoun said the acquisition of Spirit would play a significant role in hitting those targets. The recent crisis contributed to a substantial slowdown in deliveries in the first quarter, though the company reported a respectable 126 net new orders, thanks in large part to an American Airlines order for dozens of 737 Max 10 planes, a jet that the FAA has yet to certify. Boeing said it had an order backlog of 5,600 planes, valued at $448 billion.

“Near term, yes, we are in a tough moment,” Calhoun said in the letter to employees. “Lower deliveries can be difficult for our customers and for our financials. But safety and quality must and will come above all else.”

After the company’s first-quarter results were announced, Moody’s downgraded Boeing’s debt one notch to its lowest investment-grade rating, Baa3. The agency cited the “inadequate performance” of Boeing’s commercial plane division.