A Nigerian woman has filed a federal discrimination lawsuit alleging she and her children were kicked off a United Airlines flight in Houston after a passenger complained about her "pungent" odor.

The woman, Queen Obioma, said the incident happened in March 2016 while she and her children were changing planes at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport on the second leg of their trip from Nigeria to Ontario.

United Airlines declined to comment on the lawsuit, which was filed Friday in Houston.

"We have not yet been served with this suit and due to the pending litigation involved in this matter, we're unable to provide further comment," a company spokeswoman told The Dallas Morning News in a written statement.

Obioma's attorneys did not respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit says Obioma and her children, all of whom are United Airlines frequent flier members, boarded a San Francisco-bound flight in Houston after arriving from Nigeria on March 4, 2016. When Obioma went to her seat, she said a white man was sitting in it. She notified him that he was in her seat, but she said he ignored her.

Obioma said she got the attention of a flight attendant who asked the man to move, but he refused. The flight attendant then asked Obioma to sit one seat over and she complied. While Obioma was putting her luggage in the overhead compartment, she saw the man get up and go to the cockpit of the plane.

She went to the restroom and said when she returned, the man was standing in the aisle blocking access to her seat. She said "excuse me" three times but the man didn't move. Eventually, she was able to squeeze her way into her seat.

As soon as she sat down, Obioma said a United Airlines staff member approached her and said she needed to exit the aircraft to speak with someone outside. She said she immediately followed the man off the plane and another United Airlines employee was waiting for her.

She said the employee told her that she would not be allowed to continue on the flight to San Francisco. He told her the pilot had personally requested that she be ejected from the aircraft since the man who was sitting in her seat was not comfortable traveling next to her because she was "pungent."

Obioma asked what he meant by "pungent" and the employee told her that it meant she smelled. She said she was distraught and tried to explain that her children were still on the plane and that they had to catch their connecting flight from San Francisco to Ontario because they were starting at a new school there.

But she wasn't allowed back on the flight, she

and stood sobbing as employees removed her luggage and her children from the plane.

The lawsuit, which is seeking punitive damages and attorney's fees, alleges that Obioma was intentionally discriminated against because of her race and that she and her children were denied equal rights by the airline.