Originally Posted by
EAJuggalo
It's possible that by vacuum packing the pillow it changes how it looks on xray and they will want to examine it more closely. Doubtful but possible. If there is no way it's going back in your carryon after being removed from the vacuum bag, what is your plan if they do? Don't count on anything staying in any compressed format.
if they do want to examine it further, politely explain you will not be able to compress it down again and request they conduct and ETD (ie. swab) it instead of unpacking it.
But if it does get uncompressed, I expect airline crew will not provide too much objection to a pillow being a 2nd carryon...