I have set up base, added flights to a plane, but no way to see if they’re taking off or how many passengers aboard / profit etc. Am I missing a step?
there are 2 ways.
1) in the inventory.
choose a destination, scroll down and you have a list of your flight nos.
at the right hand side of the list is a small triangular arrow you can click.
2) in the fleet management you cann choose each of your aircraft.
on top there is a external map, very nice work based on google maps:
Did you activate the flight plans?