Cats are pretty sneaky, I wonder if kitty packed itself and the owner didn’t know? I have had kitties try to get into luggage. Also possible a child packed kitty, my stepson packed a kitty in his bag once on a car trip.
Oh, gosh ;-)
It does seem odd that anyone trying to ‘smuggle’ kitty would expect to get through TSA...it’s just that of late, I don’t have a lot of faith in many folks’ ‘common sense’.